The Ghostwriter

Clark (The Lies I Tell) effortlessly delivers on her clever, metatextual premise in this devilish thriller. Olivia Dumont had a successful career ghostwriting celebrity memoirs until her public rebuke of John Calder, a bestselling but misogynistic author, tarnished her reputation in the industry. Desperate for money, Dumont accepts a lucrative assignment to ghostwrite a book by horror superstar Vincent Taylor, despite her utter lack of experience writing fiction. The other problem? Taylor is Olivia’s estranged father. Fifty years ago, he became the prime suspect in the 1975 double murder of his siblings, Danny and Poppy, in their Ojai, Calif., home. Though rumors about the killings persist, they remain unsolved, and Taylor still lives in Ojai, where he’s been churning out bestsellers for decades. In recent years, his cognitive abilities have declined, but Olivia remains wary of him—especially when she realizes his new book is a supposed tell-all about the murders. Clark keeps readers guessing about Taylor’s motives and guilt, all while playing scrupulously fair with the reader. It adds up to a deeply satisfying shocker in the vein of Riley Sager’s The Only One Left. Agent: Mollie Glick, CAA. (June)