Though Chloe was the younger of the two Taylor sisters, she always seemed to be the one in charge. As they grow up, they become virtual strangers. Then Chloe's husband is brutally murdered and the sisters must come together to confront their family secrets.
Readers of The Better Sister, Alafair Burke’s wonderfully twisty new thriller should get ready to be led down the garden path to a conclusion so morally ambiguous a professional ethicist might have to be called in. You end up feeling both horrified and vaguely complicit ... The murder trial takes up the last third of the story, and it’s knowingly and suspensefully dramatized by Burke, herself a former prosecutor.
Burke slowly, skillfully reveals the story ... Like all of Burke’s novels, The Better Sister benefits from her inside knowledge of the legal system ... Burke is just as adept at creating complex characters and the relationships between them ... As always, Burke keeps the book’s action fast-paced and full of surprises.
The Better Sister exhibits characteristics of domestic noir, thriller, and suspense all layered on top a good, old-fashioned whodunit ... as with all good tales of domestic suspense, nothing is what it appears on the surface ... Regardless of whose head we’re in, Burke’s dynamic voice and page-turning storytelling compels the reader forward to find out where all the various threads will lead ... In addition to the powerful characteristics of a thriller, The Better Sister is also a psychological investigation of social media, gender in business, childrearing, and family ties ... a compelling thriller.
