Twenty-five years ago, Stella’s identical twin Leila disappeared, never to be seen again. But Stella sees Leila every time she looks in the mirror. Unable to move on, Stella would give anything to just get closure. To know what happened.
When she’s approached by a true crime documentary crew, Stella agrees in hopes that new information might possibly come to light. She really doesn’t expect the killer to reach out, expressing guilt and offering answers… in exchange for Stella sharing her innermost agonies with him.
This is a slow build psychological thriller. Stella’s trauma is obvious from early on, but is revealed over the course of the book to be more extensive, her internal guilt greater. As she’s forced to confront the past, however, we also start to see her move past it, moving on from the stasis she’s been in ever since Leila disappeared.
There’s a really huge twist at the final confrontation, and I admit I absolutely did not see the identity of the killer coming at all, even though they had been present from early in the story. It wasn’t a deus ex machina ending, but neither was it a mystery the reader could solve before the truth was revealed to Stella; the clues just weren’t there.
I admit I am of the opinion that the cleverest mysteries are those that have me kicking myself at the reveal for not having put the clues together earlier. This one didn’t do that; I kind of thought ‘huh, okay, I’ll buy that’ but there was no real foreshadowing, with clues I might have picked up on. Overall a good read and an intriguing story, with some fascinating insights into the emotions of twins who have lost their pair, which the author has obviously extensively researched, but didn’t really tick all the boxes for a great mystery for me. I’ll give it four stars.
Disclaimer: I received a review copy of this title via NetGalley.