The Accomplice by Lisa Lutz

*REVIEW* Yikes, I’m kinda late with this one, which I actually read weeks ago. 

Q: Would you rather have compelling characters or a compelling plot?

Ideally I’d want both, but if I had to choose, I’d go with characters.

Which leads me to this book…

One-sentence summary:
Luna and Owen have been platonic friends since college, but when she finds the body of Owen’s wife dead from a gunshot wound, suspicion turns to Owen, causing an unexplained death during their college years to come back to haunt them.

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This, which flips back and forth between the present and the college years of these two friends, held my attention to a certain extent. I found the characters of Luna and Owen  - as well as their relationship to each other - to be pleasingly complex, especially for a book in the mystery & thriller genre. I also appreciated the fact that they both had some quirky, and at times unlikeable, qualities. 

What I struggled with was the fact that I felt emotionally removed from all of the characters and the story as a whole. This is the first time I’ve read anything by Lutz, and I’m not sure if that distance – what felt almost like a coldness – can be attributed to her writing style or a specific choice she made with this book. At times, I enjoyed the feeling of disconnect and was hoping there was a reason for it, but after reaching the end and reflecting on it, I think it was less a conscious choice and more this author’s writing style. Still, even though I didn’t feel connected to the characters, I found them fascinating. 

The plotting, I will say, seemed contrived to me. Yes, all fiction is made up, but sometimes too many things are held back from the reader at the wrong time that it just starts to feel like you’re being a bit manipulated and the believability wanes. 

I did really enjoy this read, although it won’t be as memorable as some of the other books I’ve loved in the genre. It was the complex characters that kept me reading, and I’d recommend it for that alone.

Thank you Ballantine Books for the ARC!