Book - The Accomplice

Out now from Titan Books, Steve Taylor-Bryant uncovers the mystery of The Accomplice by Lisa Lutz...

Everyone has the same questions about best friends Owen and Luna: What binds them together so tightly? Why weren't they ever a couple? And why do people around them keep turning up dead?

Owen Mann is charming, privileged, and chronically dissatisfied. Luna Grey is secretive, cautious, and pragmatic. Despite their differences, they begin forming a bond the moment they meet in college. Their names soon become indivisible - Owen and Luna, Luna and Owen - and stay that way even after an unexplained death rocks their social circle.

Years later, they're still best friends when Luna finds Owen's wife brutally murdered. The police investigation sheds some light on long-hidden secrets, but it can't penetrate the wall of mystery that surrounds Owen. To get to the heart of what happened and why, Luna has to dig up the one secret she's spent her whole life burying.

There is a lot to like in Lisa Lutz's The Accomplice. It is a very well crafted mystery thriller and one of the few I’ve read where I hadn’t a clue until the reveal who did what. The answers to who killed Owen’s wife though, despite this being an obviously huge event, are almost beside the point, unimportant because it is the past and the creation of the bond between Luna and Owen that is, for me, the most gripping part of the whole story. 

The Accomplice jumps about the timelines but at no point do you feel lost or taken out of the story, because each jump backwards into the past shows another layer to these rich and fabulous characters. Rarely do I love and root for a character and yet sometimes doubt and hate them before being warmed by them again and both Owen and Luna are fascinating characters to try and unravel. Then you can add in the other characters and subplots and what Lutz has built is a complex and enthralling story that takes you on an emotional journey.

The Accomplice is full of secrecy and intrigue and an unbreakable bond between two incredible characters and few thrillers will beat this one out of my favourites list this year.

Follow Steve on Twitter @STBwrites

The Accomplice by Lisa Lutz is available now, published by Titan Books

Image - Titan Books