TUESDAY EXCERPTS: “A GOOD MARRIAGE”

Welcome to another Tuesday celebrating bookish events: First Chapter/Intros, now hosted by  Socrates Book Reviews; and Teaser Tuesdays hosted by The Purple Booker.

Today’s featured book is a recent acquisition:  A Good Marriage, by Kimberly McCreight.

 

 

***

Intro:  (Prologue)

I never meant for any of this to happen.  That’s a stupid thing to say.  But it is true.  And obviously, I didn’t kill anyone.  Would never, could never. You know that.  You know me better than anyone.

***

Teaser:  I felt suddenly like a key was slipping through my fingers, about to be lost forever to some crack in the floor.  Whatever I’d gone into that office to accomplish was no longer in my control.  I was being cross-examined by someone of far superior skill. (p. 58).

***

Synopsis:  Lizzie Kitsakis is working late when she gets the call. Grueling hours are standard at elite law firms like Young & Crane, but they’d be easier to swallow if Lizzie was there voluntarily. Until recently, she’d been a happily underpaid federal prosecutor. That job and her brilliant, devoted husband Sam—she had everything she’d ever wanted. And then, suddenly, it all fell apart.

No. That’s a lie. It wasn’t sudden, was it? Long ago the cracks in Lizzie’s marriage had started to show. She was just good at averting her eyes.

The last thing Lizzie needs right now is a call from an inmate at Rikers asking for help—even if Zach Grayson is an old friend. But Zach is desperate: his wife, Amanda, has been found dead at the bottom of the stairs in their Brooklyn brownstone. And Zach’s the primary suspect.

As Lizzie is drawn into the dark heart of idyllic Park Slope, she learns that Zach and Amanda weren’t what they seemed—and that their friends, a close-knit group of fellow parents at the exclusive Brooklyn Country Day school, might be protecting troubling secrets of their own. In the end, she’s left wondering not only whether her own marriage can be saved, but what it means to have a good marriage in the first place.

***

What do you think?  I have loved other books by this author, so I’m eager to immerse myself in this one.

***