Complicit by Stephanie Khuen

 

• Release Date: June 24th, 2014

• Genre: Thriller

• Pages: 256

• Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin (Macmillan)

Kheun’s 2013 debut, Charm and Strange is in the top 5 books I read this year, and when I saw Khuen had a new book coming out this year I had to get my hands on it!

As in Charm and Strange, Complicit introduces us to a loner narrator who is living with undiagnosed mental issues. 17-year-old Jamie has always been told he should feel fortunate to live with a rich, caring foster family after his mother died when he as a child. While his adjustment was hard at first, he fits into the family quite nicely. But now things are changing because his older sister Cate is back from jail which will set him, his family and his town on edge,.

Complicit has similar motifs to Charm & Strange, most noticeably the collision between past and present.

The ending of this novel is just insane. I wouldn’t call it a twist or anything but Khuen loaded the ending with so much suspense I could not stop once I reached the last few chapters.

By creating these unstable first-person narrations she takes away the trust in the narrator. They are not only unreliable they are often intentionally leaving things out.

While it doesn’  like this like I liked  Charm and Strange, I love Khuen’s style, she’s one of those authors that once you get to a certain point you’re hooked to the end.  She says her next book will be a little aversion from these first two so I’ll sit and wait (not so) patiently.

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