Long Gone by Alafair Burke

Synopsis :


After a layoff and months of struggling, Alice Humphrey finally lands her dream job managing a new art gallery in Manhattan’s trendy Meatpacking District. According to Drew Campbell, the well-suited corporate representative who hires her, the gallery is a passion project for its anonymous, wealthy, and eccentric owner. Drew assures Alice that the owner will be hands off, allowing her to run the gallery on her own. Her friends think it sounds too good to be true, but Alice sees a perfect opportunity to make a name for herself beyond the shadow of her famous father, an award-winning and controversial film maker.

Everything is perfect until the morning Alice arrives at work to find the gallery gone—the space stripped bare as if it had never existed—and Drew Campbell’s dead body on the floor. Overnight, Alice’s dream job has vanished, and she finds herself at the centre of police attention with nothing to prove her innocence. The phone number Drew gave her links back to a disposable phone. The artist whose work she displayed doesn’t seem to exist. And the dead man she claims is Drew has been identified as someone else.

When police discover ties between the gallery and a missing girl, Alice knows she’s been set up. Now she has to prove it—a dangerous search for answers that will entangle her in a dark, high-tech criminal conspiracy and force her to unearth long-hidden secrets involving her own family . . . secrets that could cost Alice her life.

Long Gone is by far the best suspense thriller I have read as an e-book. It didn’t start of as such. In fact it was a web of confusing connections between a few characters and the crimes that's been investigated. Incidents that you thought happen in isolation are actually related in some way. 

As the saying goes, ‘All road leads to Rome’. In this book, all investigation leads to Alice Humphrey. I like Alice who is the main character. She’s likable in many ways and readers would be convinced that she was framed . Who does it and why would be in the mind of many readers including myself.  I have my own theories and am glad that at least one of my theories was proven correct.  The plot to Long Gone is quite original. At least, I have not read anything similar and enjoyed it.    The only thing that confuses me and which I felt wasnt' really necessary was the investigation on the missing girl.  I wonder where the author is going with that.

This book is highly recommended.  This is the first time I read a book by Alafair Burke.  I have not even heard of her before this but the next time I come across her book, you can be sure that I will certainly get a copy. 

Alafair Burke is the bestselling author of six novels, including 212, Angel’s Tip, and Dead Connection in the Ellie Hatcher series. A former prosecutor, she now teaches criminal law and lives in Manhattan. Long Gone is her first stand-alone thriller.

I review this for netGalley.com

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