What Never Happened

Bestseller Hall’s arresting if problematically plotted latest (after We Lie Here) centers on Coco Weber, who has spent much of her life dealing with death. At 15, Coco’s parents and older brother were murdered in their Catalina Island home; after college, she became an obituary writer for the Los Angeles Times. The sudden end of her marriage and her career 19 years after the murders force the fragile journalist back to Catalina, where the house she inherited and a fresh obit gig at the local paper await. Immediately, though, Coco is slammed from all sides: there’s venom from her Aunt Gwen, who’s been living in the now ramshackle family home and considers it hers to keep; the release of the man convicted of killing her family, who’s been exonerated by DNA evidence; and what seems a disproportionate number of elderly women’s obituaries to write. Despite the ages of her subjects, Coco suspects they may have been murdered, and that their deaths might be connected to her own family tragedy. While Coco and her aunt are complex, convincing characters, the other major players prove little more than game pieces in a plot that careens into preposterousness around its climactic twists. Hall manages plenty of intrigue, but the results are uneven. Agent: Jill Marsal, Marsal Lyon Literary. (Aug.)