The stranger behind you A novel

Updating gothic tropes in her latest, two-time Mary Higgins Clark Award winner Goodman ironically plants a #MeToo-investigating journalist in a converted Magdalene laundry called the Refuge, in upper Manhattan. The building is a veritable fortress. The nuns didn't want anyone to get out, and Joan Lurie doesn't want anyone to get in. Joan was brutally attacked after publishing a seething article that identified a media tycoon as a vicious sexual predator; now, badly concussed, she is struggling to work on a book. Shadowed by an ominous hooded figure, she seldom ventures out. She finds herself oddly drawn to her 96-year-old neighbor, Lillian Day. Lillian has been in hiding at The Refuge since 1941, when she witnessed a gangland murder. Joan's subject has committed suicide, and his wife has moved into the apartment below Joan and is hell-bent on revenge. Their stories mingle in a mesmerizing narrative that culminates in a poignant ending to a brilliant journey. Gothic? Note the phantom lye and bleach stench and wait for it! Make sure fans of Shari Lapena and Alison Gaylin get their hands on this one.

Attacked after a party celebrating the publication of her exposé about a predatory newspaper tycoon, Joan Lurie retreats to a high-security apartment building in upper Manhattan that was once the Magdalen Laundry and Refuge for Fallen Women. There she meets nonagenarian Lillian, who's hidden out there since the 1940s after witnessing some mob action. From Edgar Award winner Goodman; with a 75,000-copy paperback and 30,000-copy hardcover first printing.