ARC BOOK REVIEW | One Little Secret by Cate Holahan

Murder, Spousal abuse, Domestic Violence, Infidelity, Underage Drinking, Drugging

Disclaimer: I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. Thank you to Netgalley and Crooked Lane Books for this free copy.

Hello, mersquad! Yes, I am finally getting to my ARCs and trying to catch up on reviews so that I can get my Netgalley queue under control! My goodness, it’s hard to catch up when there are literally hundreds – if not more – that need to be reviewed. I’ll get to them though, so don’t worry.

I’m here to talk about my experience with One Little Secret, which I honestly thought was going to be out of my enjoyment area, but wasn’t. I feel like it read like other mystery thrillers that deal with couples and infidelity and secrets, but I think this one was decent. For some reason, the synopsis made it seem like Susan was the main character in all this, and that somehow the murder and secrets would all revolve around her. Hopefully this isn’t a spoiler, but it really wasn’t.

I also thought I wasn’t going to like Susan either because she seemed to just come off as a conceited and self-absorbed woman, but she wasn’t really all that either. In this novel, we have three couples that are neighbors and friends that take a vacation away from the kids in this beach house in the Hamptons. Things start to unravel when arguments ensue and the next morning, one of them is dead. Why? Who did it? That’s the mystery.

I appreciate the book for what it was, and even though I wasn’t actively trying to solve the mystery, I feel like the red herring was done perfectly. I truly didn’t know the truth until the ending, when it was revealed, and even then I could see how the red herring was the more viable suspect. It could also be because I sped through this one, knowing that I needed to listen to it eventually and I was already years behind, but I do think I was following it for the most part.

I think the author’s decision to split the time to be “the day of” and “the day after” made it seem like everything was going to be solved so quickly and didn’t seem realistic to me. I may sometimes fall for the CSI effect – you know, where we think everything is going to be solved in the span of one 50 minute episode on TV thanks to shows like CSI, Bones, etc.? – but in this case, I felt like it should have taken a bit longer. Yes, I understand that time was of the essence in regards to a few characters, and maybe that’s what made the time speed up so quickly, but I think the author could have slowed things down a bit more. Or even having another time POV like “days before” or whatever. I do like how she split it though, so we could get the backstory of what happened before the murder, and then see how Detective Gabby (I’m totally spacing on her last name right now) goes through her investigation.

All in all, while I don’t really care for the lives of the rich, I think there were some elements added to this that made them seem almost relatable. I also wasn’t sure of why Gabby was working on another case that seemed unrelated at the time – there was a young girl who was raped and drugged by some other party boys that were preying on underage girls during the same time as this – but then towards the end it started to make sense. I guess it’s true that elements from other cases can make you think about what’s missing in the current priority. I don’t know if I said that correctly, but that’s basically what happened.

I think I’m okay with the ending honestly, and I think it’s funny that the only one that didn’t seem to suffer was Susan in the end. No, I’m not saying how, but that was interesting. Maybe that’s why the synopsis read like it was going to focus on her? No idea. But there was more to everyone that met the eye and I didn’t like a single person in this book. Perfect.