Book Review: No One Will Miss Her, by Kat Rosenfield
A rich bitch and the small-town trashgirl, in a thriller narrated from beyond the grave.
William Morrow, 2021, 304 pages
On a beautiful October morning in rural Maine, a homicide investigator from the state police pulls into the hard-luck town of Copper Falls. The local junkyard is burning, and the town pariah Lizzie Oullette is dead - with her husband, Dwayne, nowhere to be found. As scandal ripples through the community, Detective Ian Bird’s inquiries unexpectedly lead him away from small-town Maine to a swank city townhouse several hours south. Adrienne Richards, blonde and fabulous social media influencer and wife of a disgraced billionaire, had been renting Lizzie’s tiny lake house as a country getaway...even though Copper Falls is anything but a resort town.
As Adrienne’s connection to the case becomes clear, so too does her connection to Lizzie, who narrates their story from beyond the grave. Each woman is desperately lonely in her own way, and they navigate a relationship that cuts across class boundaries: transactional, complicated, and, finally, deadly. A Gone Girl for the gig economy, this is a story of privilege, identity, and cunning, as two devious women from opposite worlds discover the dangers of coveting someone else’s life.
This psychological thriller, written with some really nice prose at times, was not what I was not expecting from an author whose other chief writing credit is some sort of project with Stan Lee that looked like an attempt to launch a non-Marvel franchise.
No One Will Miss Her is not so much a thriller as a murder mystery. We know some of the details from the beginning, because Lizzie Oullette is narrating her own story from beyond the grave. At first I was annoyed by this - it's not a supernatural thriller so having a dead person as the narrator, who strategically withholds the whole story until the very end, would normally seem like a cheap storytelling gimmick, even kind of a cheat. But in this case, it works.
Lizzie was the town trailer trash in Copper Falls, a small Maine town where she and her father will always be outsiders. Her mother died young, and her father tried, but Lizzie grew up without much in the way of parental direction. Then she got knocked up by the town's golden boy who supposedly had a bright future ahead of him because he could pitch a decent fastball. A quick wedding followed by a miscarriage is followed by the two of them being trapped in Copper Falls, with neither of them liking either the town or each other very much.
Into this impoverished setting wanders Adrienne Richards and her husband Ethan. Ethan is a Madoff-like financier who recently escaped prosecution after destroying thousands of people's retirement savings, and Adrienne and Ethan are both very sad about how mean people are to them on social media and how none of their friends will talk to them anymore. The little house in the woods that Lizzie has fixed up as an Airbnb is the perfect "get away from it all" retreat for a couple of uber-rich out-of-towners. Adrienne's vast entitlement and condescension renders her impervious to the town's animosity, and she treats Lizzie with practiced, faux-friendly contempt.
What I really liked about this book was how Rosenfield teased out all the details of these characters. Their life stories, their personalities, and the secrets they keep to themselves are all revealed. We really come to feel for Lizzie, a decent kid who had dreams, and even a plan to get out of Copper Falls. Her husband is no prize, but he's not a monster, he's just another fucked-up kid from a fucked-up town who might have been better in different circumstances. Adrienne is an archetypal Heather who positively wallows in her wealth and her privilege. She loves money, posting selfies on Instagram, and unleashing her inner Karen on the peasants.
I like!
Lookin' hot
Buying stuff they cannot
- Heathers, "Candy Store"
No One Will Miss Her at times felt like a Stephen King novel, in a good way. Rosenfield has an eye for describing class differences and the power of money and the curse of living in a small town where everyone knows your business (or thinks they do), all framed around a gruesome murder.
So of course for most of the book, the big hanging question is how did we end up with Lizzie's face blown off, her nose in the garbage disposal, her husband missing, and Adrienne back at her Boston townhouse frantically preparing to go on the run?
The introduction of a secondary character, a state police officer investigating Lizzie's murder, might have smoothed some of the rough edges in the story for the author, but I felt he was kind of unnecessary, even if he did have a role to play later. When the twist comes, it's a good one, but it almost got dragged out too long.
Nonetheless, this was definitely an above-average thriller. A comparison to Stephen King for characterization is high praise from me. Recommended if you like stories of the riches interacting with the poors and violence ensuing.
My complete list of book reviews.
William Morrow, 2021, 304 pages
On a beautiful October morning in rural Maine, a homicide investigator from the state police pulls into the hard-luck town of Copper Falls. The local junkyard is burning, and the town pariah Lizzie Oullette is dead - with her husband, Dwayne, nowhere to be found. As scandal ripples through the community, Detective Ian Bird’s inquiries unexpectedly lead him away from small-town Maine to a swank city townhouse several hours south. Adrienne Richards, blonde and fabulous social media influencer and wife of a disgraced billionaire, had been renting Lizzie’s tiny lake house as a country getaway...even though Copper Falls is anything but a resort town.
As Adrienne’s connection to the case becomes clear, so too does her connection to Lizzie, who narrates their story from beyond the grave. Each woman is desperately lonely in her own way, and they navigate a relationship that cuts across class boundaries: transactional, complicated, and, finally, deadly. A Gone Girl for the gig economy, this is a story of privilege, identity, and cunning, as two devious women from opposite worlds discover the dangers of coveting someone else’s life.
This psychological thriller, written with some really nice prose at times, was not what I was not expecting from an author whose other chief writing credit is some sort of project with Stan Lee that looked like an attempt to launch a non-Marvel franchise.
No One Will Miss Her is not so much a thriller as a murder mystery. We know some of the details from the beginning, because Lizzie Oullette is narrating her own story from beyond the grave. At first I was annoyed by this - it's not a supernatural thriller so having a dead person as the narrator, who strategically withholds the whole story until the very end, would normally seem like a cheap storytelling gimmick, even kind of a cheat. But in this case, it works.
Lizzie was the town trailer trash in Copper Falls, a small Maine town where she and her father will always be outsiders. Her mother died young, and her father tried, but Lizzie grew up without much in the way of parental direction. Then she got knocked up by the town's golden boy who supposedly had a bright future ahead of him because he could pitch a decent fastball. A quick wedding followed by a miscarriage is followed by the two of them being trapped in Copper Falls, with neither of them liking either the town or each other very much.
Into this impoverished setting wanders Adrienne Richards and her husband Ethan. Ethan is a Madoff-like financier who recently escaped prosecution after destroying thousands of people's retirement savings, and Adrienne and Ethan are both very sad about how mean people are to them on social media and how none of their friends will talk to them anymore. The little house in the woods that Lizzie has fixed up as an Airbnb is the perfect "get away from it all" retreat for a couple of uber-rich out-of-towners. Adrienne's vast entitlement and condescension renders her impervious to the town's animosity, and she treats Lizzie with practiced, faux-friendly contempt.
What I really liked about this book was how Rosenfield teased out all the details of these characters. Their life stories, their personalities, and the secrets they keep to themselves are all revealed. We really come to feel for Lizzie, a decent kid who had dreams, and even a plan to get out of Copper Falls. Her husband is no prize, but he's not a monster, he's just another fucked-up kid from a fucked-up town who might have been better in different circumstances. Adrienne is an archetypal Heather who positively wallows in her wealth and her privilege. She loves money, posting selfies on Instagram, and unleashing her inner Karen on the peasants.
I like!
Lookin' hot
Buying stuff they cannot
- Heathers, "Candy Store"
No One Will Miss Her at times felt like a Stephen King novel, in a good way. Rosenfield has an eye for describing class differences and the power of money and the curse of living in a small town where everyone knows your business (or thinks they do), all framed around a gruesome murder.
So of course for most of the book, the big hanging question is how did we end up with Lizzie's face blown off, her nose in the garbage disposal, her husband missing, and Adrienne back at her Boston townhouse frantically preparing to go on the run?
The introduction of a secondary character, a state police officer investigating Lizzie's murder, might have smoothed some of the rough edges in the story for the author, but I felt he was kind of unnecessary, even if he did have a role to play later. When the twist comes, it's a good one, but it almost got dragged out too long.
Nonetheless, this was definitely an above-average thriller. A comparison to Stephen King for characterization is high praise from me. Recommended if you like stories of the riches interacting with the poors and violence ensuing.
My complete list of book reviews.