WATCH HER

The members of a highly respectable circle of friends and relatives have very different reasons for keeping secrets.

When Harvard librarian Hester Thursby and her non-husband, veterinarian Morgan Maguire, attend the opening of a campus center at Boston's Prescott University, the wealthy Matson family’s for-profit institution, they’re joined by Hester’s friend Sergeant Angela White. Barret, one of the waiters, a trans student at Prescott, has had an unpleasant experience with the university’s CFO, Gavin Dean, who’s married to the institution's president, Vanessa Matson. At the request of Prescott administrator Maxine Pawlikowski, whose brother is Angela’s boss at the Boston Police Department, Hester and Angela leave the opening to investigate a burglary at the home of Jennifer and Tucker Matson, Vanessa’s parents. Jennifer has been a recluse since her younger daughter drowned years before, and her claims about the burglary ring hollow to Maxine, Hester, and Angela. Although many of these people have been unacquainted, Hester’s work helping Maxine clear up some suspected financial wrongdoing at Prescott brings them together. Hester’s never resolved her problems with her mother, and everyone else is hiding crippling, deep-seated secrets that are dragged into the open when Barret’s girlfriend is found dead. Hester, an experienced researcher and finder of lost people, uncovers enough evidence to indicate that the Matson daughter’s drowning was suspicious. Angela hates to admit the possibility of her lieutenant’s complicity but knows that Maxine will do anything to protect Vanessa. The secrets finally come tumbling out in a frenzy of lies and violence.

Complex characterization and a masterly mystery make this a superior read.