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You could read The Alaska Sanders Affair without reading the first in the series, The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair, because this doesn’t spoil any of the mystery of that novel. But I would recommend that one anyway because it’s excellent. It’s a clever book-within-a-book with a lot going on, and the mystery itself was a good one. I also really enjoyed Dicker’s Enigma of Room 22, another very clever story-within-a-story mystery. So having been so intellectually satisfied with those mysteries, I was eager to pick up this latest.
I was a bit disappointed here, however, because this book had none of the nesting of stories going on as the others. It was much in the same style, though, with an author or “the” author (a form of Joel Dicker, in the case of Enigma) being the narrator and going among current-day first-person, past first-person and past third-person viewpoints. The “extra” of stories within stories wasn’t present here; it rested on the Harry Quebert laurels instead. I really missed that extra, though; I find myself more interested in mystery books that do have something different. (Let’s say a je ne sais quoi, since this is written by a Francophone, or actually, a je sais quoi, because I do know the difference.)
That being said, this is a solid mystery, with excellent investigation throughout and a kind of buddy-cop thing going on. There are a number of times it seems clear who the culprit is: case closed. But then the reader feels it’s not quite right, and then the investigators do as well.
I didn’t guess who the perpetrator was when they were revealed, so that’s always good. And it was satisfying after that revelation to go through the whole story from their point of view about what happened and why.
But I just felt a bit let down at the end because of what I’ve already mentioned. It’s clear because of plot threads left hanging that there are more mysteries to come featuring the author Marcus Goldman and his police investigator friend Sergeant Perry Gahalowood. I won’t jump to read them, though, as I did The Alaska Sanders Affair. But fans of solid police procedurals will definitely want to put them on their to-read lists.
Rated: High. Profanity includes 17 uses of strong language, around 55 instances of moderate profanity, 55 uses of mild language, and 15 instances of the name of Deity in vain. Sexual content includes several instances of vulgar references to sex, as well as some instances of nudity and a few brief but somewhat detailed scenes. Violence occurs several times in the book, with some instances of a bit of blood or other gory details.
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*I received an ARC in exchange for my honest review.
