If you’re in the mood for a clever and claustrophobic domestic crime thriller / murder mystery then Shari Lapena is your author. Her newest book, What Have You Done? features her trademark plot aesthetic and gives us a tantalising premise with a whole host of suspects.
Opening sentence: Early Friday morning, Roy Ressler drives his big tractor down the gravel road that borders his fields, his mind on his daughter’s upcoming wedding.
Who dunnit?
So the aforementioned Shari Lapena plot aesthetic is to seamlessly weave in quite a few POVs at the same time and set up a few characters to be not as they initially seem.
Roy Ressler, of the opening sentence, finds the body of 17-year-old Diana in his field and then we are taken through the tricky task of finding out who, in this small, quiet community in Vermont, USA, actually killed her.
There are three suspects brought to the front – Cameron, Diana’s boyfriend, a teacher from her school and a man she doesn’t know but who takes an interest in her at her job in a store. We get to find out more about each of these characters, their backgrounds and motivations.
There is also an interesting exploration with Cameron’s parents and how far would you go to defend your son if he was a suspect in a murder case, if you started to have doubts…
Then she says, ‘That’s just it – there’s never any real proof with this kind of thing – it all comes down to who’s telling the truth. To who you believe.’
There is a POV from Diana, looking down on the aftermath of her death, but I didn’t love this element. It ties back to a slightly wider ghostly sub-plot but I don’t think enough was made from it for it to add value to the story here.
Nuggets of info are perfectly paced through What Have You Done? so you are kept hooked and invested. I really did want to find out who killed Diana, BUT I’m giving it three stars as the big reveal left me with a few questions in terms of character development up until this point and the ending just didn’t quite hit that sweet spot for me.
