Everyone Who Can Forgive Me Is Dead

This book just picks you up and catapults you into five or so hours of unrelenting suspense and anxiety. British-born Charlie came to New York City to attend a prestigious journalism school—much like Columbia’s—and just months into the program, she witnessed a horrific mass murder, quickly dubbed “Scarlet Christmas.” Since then, Charlie has built a life that largely leaves those nightmarish events behind her. Today, she’s engaged to a super-rich scion of a publishing house and is herself editor in chief of a leading magazine. But she still struggles in wanting to know her past, although even intensive work with a therapist won’t unlock the events of that fateful Christmas eve and what her role in them may have been. Then Charlie learns that a documentary film is in development—it’s the tenth anniversary of the murders—that promises to tell the whole truth. But what is the truth? Whatever it might be, Charlie is terrified of the revelations that might come tumbling out and fears that her oh-so-perfect Manhattan life will collapse on itself like a house of cards. How far will Charlie go to keep the lid on the pressure cooker? A brilliant debut that isn’t promising—it completely delivers.—