Days after the dawn of Y2K, beautiful, charismatic nineteen-year-old Karlie Richards is found brutally murdered in her campus apartment. Two decades later, those who knew Karlie – and those who just knew of her – remain consumed by her death. Among them is her freshman year roommate, Joy, now middle-aged and mid-divorce, living in the same college town and desperate for a new beginning. When she stumbles upon a twenty-year-old letter from Karlie, Joy becomes convinced the man in prison for her murder was wrongfully convicted.
Pearson’s rich debut murder mystery gathers potency from its portrait of middle-aged millennial angst and Y2K-era misogyny ... The plot is solidly constructed but not quite exceptional. Where Pearson shines is in her palpable evocation of both decades, and her rendering of the challenges Joy and Karlie face as women.
