THE GOOD TWIN

Separated at birth, twin sisters are embroiled in a murder plot—against each other.

In Green’s (Justice Delayed, 2017, etc.) novel, Mallory Holcolm is working as a waitress in New York City when a patron confuses her for the owner of a nearby art gallery. When she spies blonde-haired, blue-eyed Charlotte “Charly” Gordon at Jensen Galleries, Mallory knows their similarities are too striking to be a coincidence—Charly is her twin sister. But while Mallory grew up in poverty with their biological mother, Charly enjoyed a life of privilege with her wealthy, adoptive family. So when Charly’s husband, Ben Gordon, asks Mallory to help him murder his wife and then split her fortune, she reluctantly agrees. First, Ben must wait for Charly’s adoptive father to die before he can change her will. In the meantime, like a sinister Pygmalion, Ben will teach Mallory to impersonate her sister, whose style and physique are more refined than hers, to seal the deal. Mallory seems a bit naïve to trust Ben without attempting to contact Charly on her own. In fact, Charly hasn’t been told that Mallory exists and is too busy caring for her ailing father to notice that her long-lost sister and her husband are plotting against her. But when the taut narrative smoothly shifts to her point of view, it’s less clear which of the two sisters is the titular good twin, because Charly harbors intriguing secrets of her own. Eventually, the mounting tension between these two strong characters, despite each woman’s desire to learn the other’s long-held family secrets, becomes the chilling story’s most powerful element. And this extreme case of sibling rivalry also deftly brings up the question of nature vs. nurture—is money the root of evil or is it genetics? Either way, the two sisters in this gripping tale are in for a tearful reunion when manipulative Ben brings them together for the big reveal.

They’re siblings, but their blood runs cold, turning what could have been a heartwarming reunion into a heart-stopping thriller.