No matter what you see, no matter what you’ve heard, assume nothing.Adam and Sophie Warner and their three-year-old daughter are vacationing in Washington State’s Hood Canal for Memorial Day weekend. It’s the perfect getaway to unplug—and to calm an uneasy marriage. But on Adam’s first day out on the water, he sees Sophie abducted by a stranger. A hundred yards from shore, Adam can’t save her. … can’t save her. And Sophie disappears.
In a nearby cabin is another couple, Kristen and Connor Moss. Unfortunately, beyond what they’ve heard in the news, they’re in the dark when it comes to Sophie’s disappearance. For Adam, at least there’s comfort in knowing that Mason County detective Lee Husemann is an old friend of his. She’ll do everything she can to help. She must.
But as Adam’s paranoia about his missing wife escalates, Lee puts together the pieces of a puzzle. The lives of the two couples are converging in unpredictable ways, and the picture is unsettling. Lee suspects that not everyone is telling the truth about what they know—or they have yet to reveal all the lies they’ve hidden from the strangers they married.
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An excellent, well written whodunnit thriller with lots of twist and turns! Highly recommend!
It was a really nice fool I think
Well, it was very nice and easy to read.
Great book that kept me guessing!
Small hints were given to the reader throughout the book, but only came together at the end.
Whoa! Really twisted story. Who knew?
Good read. First I’ve read by Gregg Olsen, but will try more.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. It’s a real page turner.
A fantastically well done murder mystery with twists and turns that I never saw coming! Well defined characters who change their stripes like chameleons throughout the book. Lying Next To Me is one of those books I couldn’t put down, as I was drawn in from the first chapter. Every time I thought I understood who murdered Sophie, and why, the next chapter made me feel I was completely wrong. The ending was so perfect I felt completely satisfied that reading this book was time well spent! This is the first book I’ve read by Gregg Olsen, and I’ll definitely look forward to reading more. Many thanks to the author, the publisher and Netgalley for allowing me to read this very good book in exchange for my honest review!
A dark, claustrophobic thriller filled with twists and turns. A brilliant book.
It’s Memorial Day weekend and Adam and Sophie Warner along with 3-year-old daughter Aubrey rent a cabin for a get away. In the cabin next to them, Kristen and Connor Moss are there for the weekend. Kristen is a corporate lawyer who wants to be a mother and Connor is a “head waiter” and a drunk. In the third cabin, a grandma and her two grandchildren are there for the weekend. Adam and Sophie are out crabbing and heading back to shore when Adam sees someone grab Sophie from the shore and disappear with her into the woods. Detectives Lee Husemann and Zach Montrose come to investigate the case. Detective Husemann is a childhood friend of Adam’s. There are lots of very suspenseful twists and turns in this story with a surprise ending that I did not see coming. The characters all start out to be likeable but then they all become very unlikeable and everybody seems to be hiding something. I have been reading Gregg Olsen’s books for years, both true crime and fiction, and I always know I am in for a good read. This book captured my attention from the beginning until the very end and it did not disappoint. If you are looking for a good mystery/thriller, this is it.
Meh! If I could have given it 2.5stars, I would have. Having said that, my 3star rating is kind of generous. I had heard from several people that Gregg Olsen was a good writer. After years of getting recommendations to check out his work, I finally decided to. I’m thinking that perhaps this book wasn’t the best one to start with. I’m thinking this was probably not his best work.
It read a little like a Lifetime movie, which isn’t as bad as it may sound; I’ve actually enjoyed a few Lifetime movies over the years. It had the requisite twists and turns that I enjoy in a mystery/thriller that produced some surprises at the end. If I read any more Gregg Olsen though, I hope I can be a little more selective and pick something more interesting and entertaining next time.
Olsen is quite deft at weaving together storylines from the past and present, leading you down one path and then throwing in twists. Right until the end I wasn’t quite sure which way it would go – or how I wanted it to go. Definitely recommend.
This was one of those murder mystery stories that is easy to predict the ending and who committed the murder. I think the characters were part of the reason this story just didn’t thrill me. Non of the characters were at all likable, except maybe the detective Lee. There wasn’t much to the story except who cheated on who and the “oh pity me” aspect of the characters. Not one of the better mystery novels.
This is the first book I’ve read by Gregg Olsen and I really enjoyed it. Sophie and Adam Warner and their daughter are on a trip for Memorial Day weekend when Sophie is disappears after being grabbed by an unseen assailant. Adam is unable to save her and even though an older man sees Sophie being abducted, Adam is immediately a suspect. As the mystery unravels secrets about Sophie and Adam’s marriage are uncovered. This is a good fast paced thriller.
This was just an “okay” read for me. I didn’t find any of the characters very likable—cheating spouses, alcoholics, abusive husbands, irresponsible fathers, crumbling marriages, corporate ninjas ready to cut down anyone in their way, and revenge driven motives. There weren’t even two characters in the whole story that ever formed a solid connection. The constant switching of character point of view from chapter to chapter layered with multiple “flashbacks” to fill out the story was distracting. I was reading this book in short spurts and would lose tract of who was “talking” causing me to have to backtrack to the beginning of the chapter to see whose eyes we were viewing the events through. The main character, his wife, and young daughter are spending a holiday weekend at a coastal beach house. The wife is kidnapped and violently murdered in what appears to be a random crime of opportunity. The story then evolves into a much more complicated web of deceit and betrayal with an epose’ of the self absorbed interests of just about every other character mentioned in the story. I didn’t find myself caring what happened to any of them except maybe the murder victim’s young daughter. There were some weak spots in the murder scenario that stretched believability and I did figure out the ending about three quarters of the way into the book. I also thought that the author was a bit disingenuous by providing the reader with a point of view from the mind’s eye of specific characters and then feeding the reader misinformation—essentially having the character lie in his or her own thoughts. If you are in a character’s head and viewing things through that character’s eyes, what you should get are the character’s true thoughts.
I didn’t like this book.
The crime happened in the first few pages and the rest of the book examined all of the other people in the area. While there were some twists in the story, I found the long descriptions tiring. Not my favorite book by s long shot.
I love reading books that have a lot of twists and turns to the plot that makes figuring out the ‘bad guys’ until close to the end. This book does that in a very unique format. Each chapter is written from the 1st POV of each of the main characters in the book.. I can’t say that any of them were ‘nice people ‘ of very likable with the exception of the detective Lee. She had a good heart, wanted to be sure she had the right person/persons that should be punished, and in the process, found out things about herself that were buried deep. The mystery was a good one to solve and if you pay real close attention, you might figure it out before the last few chapters. I did, but the explanations at the end closed all the gaps I had left open. Good writing, Mr. Olsen. I’m a big fan of your books and have another in my queue to read. On the next great mystery.
This book started out good but quickly lost momentum. Most of the characters had issues and it was hard to like any of them. The plot was fairly predictable, and since I had it figured out early on, it was just a matter of unraveling the motive and loose ends. I thought “The Last Thing She Did” was so much better.
I did not finish this book I am sad to admit. However, I really hate reading with a character who is so obviously and obnoxiously against another character that he/she simply spews hate, and this book has one that totally turned me off. Point-of-view switches ad nauseam and a really slow revelation of the truth added to my reasons for not finishing. I did read the ending because I did not dislike the plot so much that I did not care – fairly predictable even for someone like me who does not try to solve the crime. The slow unfolding of the truth and numerous point-of-view switches just weren’t unpredictable or page-turning sufficient for me in addition to my extreme dislike of the above mentioned character.
Lying Next to Me had me from the very first page. I stayed up all night to read this because I had to know what the ending would be. Highly recommend.