As Long as We Both Shall Live

Starred review from October 15, 2018
Marriage is murder in Chaney's creepy new tale of deadly domestic woe.In 1995, Janice Evans is married to Matt, working long hours at an old folks' home while Matt attends school, and although Janice loves her husband, Matt is trying her patience because he's cheating. Flash-forward to 2018, and Matt has been married to the lovely Marie for more than 20 years. Matt has tried to put his past behind him. After all, it's not his fault Janice was killed by an intruder who attacked them both while they slept. Matt and Marie have two daughters in college and, like most couples, have had a few rough patches. A romantic hiking weekend is just the thing to put the spark back in their marriage...until Marie plummets off the edge of a cliff into Three Forks River at Colorado's Rocky Mountain National Park. Matt, of course, is immediately a murder suspect despite his protestations. He insists Marie fell, but something doesn't add up to Denver Homicide Detective Marion Spengler. Even her much older partner, the very rough around the edges Ralphie Loren, smells something rotten in paradise. When a body is finally pulled from the raging river, all hell breaks loose. Chaney (What You Don't Know, 2017) alternates past and present, creating an unbearably urgent narrative, and she has a shockingly firm grasp on the barbs and ennui of long-term marriage. Readers will be convinced they know what happened, but as the nature of Marie and Matt's relationship is revealed, watch out: This duo is one of a kind. There are no one-dimensional characters here. Matt is the least developed, but even he, in all his boorishness, has hidden depths. Loren is a fascinating, crass, undeniably sharp cop hiding a painful secret; he's haunted by past cases, and Chaney doesn't skimp on the harrowing details. But it's the women who are the stars. The nuanced Spengler, a very competent detective as well as a wife and mother, is still feeling her way in a man's world, and Marie is a force of nature, destructive and altogether relatable in equal measure.A perfectly paced, shock-studded chiller from an author to watch.

COPYRIGHT(2018) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

November 5, 2018
The fall of 40-something housewife Marie Evans off a cliff above the Three Forks River in Estes Park, Colo., kick-starts this uneven domestic thriller from Chaney (What You Don’t Know). According to Marie’s husband, Matt, the couple were hiking when she slipped off a cliff, but nearby campers report having heard a woman scream for mercy shortly before Marie went missing. Matt maintains his innocence, but Denver homicide detectives Marion Spengler and Ralph Loren have their doubts—particularly once they learn that 23 years earlier Madison, Wis., police suspected Matt of murdering his first wife. As recovery teams search for Marie’s body, Spengler and Loren investigate the Evanses’ marriage. But after a strong start, the plot loses momentum. Though the complex female characters intrigue, crass male stereotypes monopolize the narrative, robbing the tale of depth and verisimilitude. Twists abound, but poorly established stakes lessen their impact, and a subplot spotlighting Loren’s dark past distracts from the central mystery. Hopefully, Chaney will do better next time. Agent: Stephanie Cabot, Gernet Co.

Starred review from November 1, 2018
Chaney grabs readers with her opening line: If you try to kill your wife without a plan, you will fail. It's advice Matt Evans neglects to heed. In 1995, Matt's wife, Justine, catches him with another woman at their home in Madison, Wisconsin, and the next morning their house is burned down, with Justine's charred remains among the ruins. Twenty-three years later, Matt and his current wife, Marie, are on a hike in Rocky Mountain National Park, not far from their home in Denver, when Marie goes off a cliff to near-certain death in the river below. Investigation of the 2018 incident turns up information about what happened in 1995, when dogged detective Abraham Reid called Evans' account of events a lie. As Denver Homicide Detective Marion Spengler and her boss, Ralph Loren, search for Marie, dead or alive, and question whether she fell or was pushed, they're joined by Reid, now retired in Phoenix, and together they ferret out the truth. Chaney (What You Don't Know, 2017) expertly toggles the narrative between 1995 and 2018 to gradually reveal the truth. Marriage laid bare, with a riveting account of evasion and pursuit?and a zinger of a coda.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)