A slow boil mystery/thriller, with a knack for leaving you still not knowing who you can trust even after being told point blank who you can trust.
Is Ariel Price a victim, or a bad guy? Is her husband really her husband? Is her child really hers? Is she involved with the mob? Which Hampton’s socialite did she push in the proverbial pool?
These are just a sampling of the questions running through my head from almost the first chapter, after the actress-turned small town bookshop owner wakes up to an empty hotel bed in Lisbon. She’s an ocean away from home, on a business trip with her new (and younger) husband. Even though their relationship is new and it’s unusual for her to accompany him on such trips, she just knows something isn’t right. Queue up whirlwind visits with the police, US Embassy, and CIA. Personal and national politics pulling puppet strings in various directions, sometimes overlapping but other times stealthy sliding by one another.
As a mystery/thriller of the “unreliable narrators” genre made popular by Gone Girl and the like, Two Nights in Lisbon delivers terrific nuance at a fast pace, and just enough nuggets to let you think your guess may just be right before tugging the rug from under you. Throw in well-placed snippets of Ariel’s backstory and timely attention to current social issues, it’s a multi-layered story that hardly misses a beat.
Details
Two Nights in Lisbon
By Chris Pavone
Read by January LaVoy
Macmillan Audio
Format: Audio
Publication: May 14, 2022
Contemporary Fiction, Thriller
#twonightsinlisbon #netgalley
Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.
Novel Expeditions 