4. Twenty Years Later by Charlie Donlea

listened on Libby/borrowed through library

2021
368 pgs.
adult mystery
Finished 1/22/22
Goodreads rating: 4.17
My rating: 4.5
Setting: mostly contemporary NYC

My comments: Oh my, talk about twists and turns and surprises!  This very complicated plot started off a bit slowly for me, but it was setting up the rest of the story really well, and once I got into it I was utterly fascinated.  And although we watch what unfolds through various eyes, each character is keeping information back, sometimes even falsifying it so we're always a little unsure of what - or why - something is happening.  There are two protagonists, Avery/Claire, a famous television investigative reporter, and Walt, a retired-in-his-forties FBI agent who now lives ... and drinks rum ... in Jamaica.  Throw in an ugly murder mystery, a woman killed on 9/11, an in-hiding hedge fund multi-millionnaire, and you have the beginning ingredients for one wild ride.

Goodreads synopsis:  Fans of Lisa Unger and Allen Eskens won’t want to miss this thrilling new suspense novel from the #1 internationally bestselling author of The Girl Who Was Taken! Hiding her own dark past in plain sight, a TV reporter is determined to uncover the truth behind a gruesome murder decades after the investigation was abandoned. But TWENTY YEARS LATER, to understand the present, you need to listen to the past…

The New York Times Best Thrillers This Season | E! News Recommended Books | Overdrive Biggest Books of the Month | Everything Zoomer, December’s Best Fiction

Avery Mason, host of American Events, knows the subjects that grab a TV audience's attention. Her latest story--a murder mystery laced with kinky sex, tragedy, and betrayal--is guaranteed to be ratings gold. New DNA technology has allowed the New York medical examiner's office to make its first successful identification of a 9/11 victim in years. The twist: the victim, Victoria Ford, had been accused of the gruesome murder of her married lover. In a chilling last phone call to her sister, Victoria begged her to prove her innocence.

Emma Kind has waited twenty years to put her sister to rest, but closure won't be complete until she can clear Victoria's name. Alone she's had no luck, but she's convinced that Avery's connections and fame will help. Avery, hoping to negotiate a more lucrative network contract, goes into investigative overdrive. Victoria had been having an affair with a successful novelist, found hanging from the balcony of his Catskills mansion. The rope, the bedroom, and the entire crime scene was covered in Victoria's DNA.

But the twisted puzzle of Victoria's private life belies a much darker mystery. And what Avery doesn't realize is that there are other players in the game who are interested in Avery's own secret past--one she has kept hidden from both the network executives and her television audience. A secret she thought was dead and buried . . .

Accused of a brutal murder, Victoria Ford made a final chilling call from the North Tower on the morning of 9/11.
Twenty years ago, no one listened.
Today, you will.
TWENTY YEARS LATER, to understand the present, you need to listen to the past...