Review by Booklist Review
Aidan Marlowe's wife, Holly, dies suddenly, leaving Aidan and their seven-year-old twins behind. Then, in a deeply ironic, guilt-inducing twist, on the day of Holly's funeral, Aidan wins the lottery, becoming an overnight multimillionaire. Aidan is no stranger to guilt: he's suffered for years over his role in the death of his 14-year-old brother. More guilt piles on when Aidan admits to himself that he's attracted to the lawyer handling his finances. Impulsively, Aidan escapes by moving to Bury, a small New Hampshire town where he knows no one. He buys a huge mansion sight unseen, without knowing the place was previously owned by a financier who disappeared with his family and was never found. When Aidan moves into the house, he senses an "energy" that doesn't feel friendly. Then he starts receiving vaguely threatening letters; faces appear in his garage window; and his daughter temporarily disappears. Suddenly, Aidan's life is in free fall; only by facing his deepest guilt and fears can he save himself and his family. Eerie, disturbing, and violent, Wilson's psychological thriller packs a real punch, with a shocker of an ending.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Widower Aidan Marlowe, the narrator of this disquieting psychological thriller from Wilson (The Dead Husband), is at his wife's grave the day of her funeral when his phone vibrates. Among his text messages is one informing him that he has won $30 million in the Powerball lottery. A few weeks later, he has moved from Baltimore with his seven-year-old twins to the small town of Bury, N.H., a destination chosen on impulse. As soon as he crosses the threshold of his imposing new house, he feels a shift in air pressure: "It's heavy and heady, a Bordeaux of tingles." He discovers that the previous owner, Logan Yates, an investment banker in his 70s, "just left the house one day and never came back." Almost immediately Aidan finds the first of a series of threatening notes, signed "We Who Watch." Aidan begins to suspect that the threats are somehow tied to the disappearance of Yates and his family. Wilson skillfully piles on the creepiness, ratcheting up the tension as Aidan's world starts spinning out of control, though not every mystery is resolved by the end. Megan Miranda fans will be satisfied. Agent: Pamela Ahearn, Ahearn Agency. (Apr.)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
Wilson returns to Bury, New Hampshire, where a painfully widowed millionaire takes up residence in a house even more troubled than he is. In the middle of his wife Holly's memorial service after she's died of an aneurysm at 34, Baltimore bartender Aidan Marlowe learns that the numbers he's been playing twice a week for many years have hit a $29.8 million Powerball jackpot. Marlowe, a dissociative type who can sense energies most people can't, though he often fades out of the picture for hours on end, decides to move to upscale Bury and buy a house that was owned by investment banker Logan Yates before he vanished along with several members of his family. He soon begins to get insinuatingly creepy letters welcoming him to Bury and signed "WE WHO WATCH." His questions to Abril, the longtime Yates housekeeper, net just enough information to make him feel that he and his 7-year-old twins, Maggie and Bo, need more protection, but his visit to Police Chief Walter Sike produces nothing but bland assurances, and he's unwilling to provide Sike's friend and security consultant Owen Brace with the personal information required to take the wholesale measures Brace urges. Soon after a housewarming party flushes out the news that Marlowe's won the lottery, a secret he's been determined to keep, WE WHO WATCH make it clear that they're interested in Marlowe's money, that they're not going away, and that the violence they threaten won't end with him. The big reveal, which goes on forever, strains credulity, but there's no denying Wilson's power to weave a dark web and keep making it darker and darker. Stuck at home because of the pandemic? This is cheaper than moving, and it'll make you feel better about staying put. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
