The Necklace - Matt Witten
I was immediately pulled into this fast paced novel, and couldn’t put it down until I reached the end. It’s impossible not to feel for Susan Lentigo as she discovers that what she has believed to be true for 20 years may not be the case at all.
Susan’s 7 year old daughter was violently raped and murdered 20 years before, and now she is planning on traveling from her small upstate New York town to a penitentiary in North Dakota to witness the execution of the man who was convicted of the crimes. But right from the start her journey is plagued by a chain of mishaps that lead her to the discovery that the man who was convicted is possibly innocent. With this information in hand she does everything she can to find out the truth, before the execution takes place.
I appreciated the way Matt Witten develops Susan’s character so much: she is multi-layered and human, makes mistakes, but also listens to her heart. She takes risks, and sometimes there are areas that are not always completely credible, but she forges on despite everything that has happened to her. You can’t help but root for her all the way.
This is a thriller, and it has some twists and turns in it right up until the end, and I was on tenterhooks until the last few pages! It was also interesting to learn that while The Necklace is fiction, the author based some areas of it on different real life events and people. I would like to add a CW for child rape, murder, and pedophilia, as these are covered in the novel very directly and may be triggering.
If you enjoy a good page turner with a few twists then this is definitely for you! I can see this as a movie that would do really, really well too.
Thanks to Netgalley, the publisher, and the author for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review.