All the Dirty Secrets

August 1, 2022
The death of a student from Washington Prep, a swank D.C. private school, during Beach Week on the Delaware shore eerily echoes that of another promising student from the same institution 28 years earlier, as no one is more painfully aware than Liza Gold, the protagonist of this dark, overly coincidence-dependent domestic thriller from Thompson (I Don’t Forgive You). Back then, Liza’s close friend and classmate Nikki Montes disappeared from the beach and was presumed drowned; now with the divorced Liza editing Wash Prep’s alumni magazine so that she can afford to send her troubled 16-year-old daughter, Zoe, there, it’s Zoe—supposedly back in D.C. with her dad—who makes the alarming discovery of the current victim’s body. As Liza delves into the tragedy’s possible connection with what happened to Nikki, she starts to suspect that she might be dangerously clueless about the true nature of some of her lifelong friends. Thompson disconcertingly mixes affecting, believable characters like Liza and Zoe with caricatures in a twisty tale of friendship and betrayal that amply deserves its cautionary warning about disturbing content, including sexual assault and death by suicide. Despite the seaside setting, this is anything but a beach book.