R E K. (bigstone) - , reviewed on 5/6/2022 + 1438 more book reviews

The body of Julian Wells, a true crime writer, is reported in a Montauk pond by the family home lying in a boat. A suicide, he has slashed his wrists but why would this successful writer take his life? Philip Anders, his best friend, asks this question and more. Could Anders have said something that prompted the suicide? Could he have prevented it if he were with Wells?

This is not a crime story but one about a man's life that somehow leads him to choose suicide. Narrated by Anders, a literary who has been a best friend of Wells since childhood, the death of the writer is surprising to both Philip and Julian's sister, Loretta.

The man's career included articles "about plague and famine and holocaust," as well as five books about horrific crimes and those who responsible. Did focusing on dark sides of life cause him to slide into darkness himself? Perhaps. Philip, Loretta and Philip's father, a former State Department bureaucrat, put their heads together to search for answers.

Focusing on an Argentinean crime the writer is believed to have been working on, Anders begins gathering information that he hopes will provide some answers. Loretta finds a map of Argentina, with a circled area that Julian and Philip had visited about thirty years earlier where a lovely young woman was their guide. And the puzzlling dedication in the book states that Philip was the "sole witness to my crime." Crime? What crime?

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