Book Recommendation – End of Story by AJ Finn

As you know, I love a good mystery.  I also love a mystery with a great “I didn’t see that coming” moment.  My latest read had both, and when the “I didn’t see that coming moment” came I was truly floored.

Here is the Goodreads synopsis:

“I’ll be dead in three months. Come tell my story.”

So writes Sebastian Trapp, reclusive mystery novelist, to his longtime correspondent Nicky Hunter, an expert in detective fiction. With mere months to live, Trapp invites Nicky to his spectacular San Francisco mansion to help draft his life story . . . living alongside his beautiful second wife, Diana; his wayward nephew, Freddy; and his protective daughter, Madeleine. Soon Nicky finds herself caught in an irresistible case of real-life “detective fever.”

“You and I might even solve an old mystery or two.”

Twenty years earlier—on New Year’s Eve 1999—Sebastian’s first wife and teenaged son vanished from different locations, never to be seen again. Did the perfect crime writer commit the perfect crime? And why has he emerged from seclusion, two decades later, to allow a stranger to dig into his past?

“Life is hard. After all, it kills you.”

As Nicky attempts to weave together the strands of Sebastian’s life, she becomes obsessed with discovering the truth . . . while Madeleine begins to question what her beloved father might actually know about that long-ago night. And when a corpse appears in the family’s koi pond, both women are shocked to find that the past isn’t gone—it’s just waiting.

Online reviews of the book are mixed.  I had to laugh when one complained that it had 100 chapters.  Some of the chapters were short, so I wonder why that reviewer even mentioned it!

The book had me asking questions throughout the read.  Was it him?  Was it her?  Do they know more than they are saying?  Why are they acting that way?  Even in the slower moments there were things that made me think. When it all falls into place, all of those questions had answers.

I give this 4.5 out of 5 stars!

Let me know if you check it out.