OTF Workouts | 30January2023 (My First Week!)
February 5, 2023
Book Review | The Marlow Murder Club by Robert Thorogood
February 6, 2023
320 pages
Published: May 2023
Read: February 2023
When an anonymous neighborhood forum gets hacked, the darkest secrets of New York’s wealthiest residents come to light—including some worth killing for—in this gripping suspense novel from the author of Just One Look.
It was all confidential. Right up to the moment when it wasn’t.
UrbanMyth: It was lauded as an alternative to the performative, show-your-best-self platforms—an anonymous discussion board grouped by zip code. The residents of Manhattan’s exclusive Upper East Side disclosed it all, things they would never share with their friends or their spouses: secret bank accounts, steamy affairs, tidbits of juicy gossip. These are the same parents who would go to astonishing lengths to ensure their children gain admission to the most prestigious boarding schools and universities. So when a “hacktivist” group breaks into the forum and exposes the real identity behind each poster, the repercussions resound down Park Avenue with a force none could have anticipated.
And someone will end up dead.
Will it be Heather, the outsider who would do anything to get her daughter into the elite’s good graces and into even better schools? Norah, the high-powered suit failing to balance work and the emotional responsibilities of motherhood? Or Poppy, perfect on the outside but hiding more than her share of secrets?
Each of them has something to hide. Each of them will do anything to keep their secrets hidden. And each of them just might kill to protect their own.
Trigger Warnings:
Main Characters
- Heather – somewhat of an outsider, always trying hard to get her child into places
- Oliver – Heathers husband
- Norah – Works A LOT
- Poppy – very, very wealthy
- Harris – Poppy’s husband
- Bennett – Norah’s husband
- Caroline – Norah’s daughter
- Henry – Poppy’s son
- Gretchen – Poppy’s friend, rich, gossiper
- Violet – Heathers daughter, top of her class
- Fernando – doorman at Poppys
- Maya – Poppy’s house cleaner
My Review
What can go wrong when how rich people can post anonymously on a site. All the drama ensues when the website they have been posting on their drama on is no longer anonymous and people know everyone’s secrets. Then, one of the parents disappears. The cops need to decide if it was because he was blackmailing people, if it was because his stepdaughter might have been cyber bullying another classmate, or if his wife was taking revenge on him for cheating!
I really enjoyed this book. Although I couldn’t completely relate with any other characters, it was fun to be sucked into their rich people drama. Hundreds of thousands of dollars just to send your kid to high school! This book has me guessing the whole time on who did it. There were enough red herrings to keep me interested, but not too many to make it too bogged down or unbelievable. This is a four-star instead of a five only because it was a little slow to start, with only rich people drama and not enough mystery. Then the ending sort of abruptly happened. I would still recommend it, though!
Spoilers
u003cstrongu003eWarningu003c/strongu003e: This section contains spoilers! Do not expand this section if you don’t want to be spoiled!
Bennett sleeps with Poppy to blackmail Her into giving her money. Heather thinks that Caroline, Nora’s daughter, took pictures of her daughter vaping at the Doubles dance sent to the upper Eastside Instagram page. She thinks that Caroline was trying to ruin her daughters life.
At a lucky cocktails party, Heather confronts Nora and her husband. She ends up causing a scene with a martini glass falling on the ground. As it turns out, Caroline had taken a picture of Bennett in the car with Poppy and not Violet vaping. Nora ask Bennett for a divorce.
As it turns out, Caroline had taken a picture of Bennett in the car with Poppy and not Violet vaping. Nora asks Bennett for a divorce.
Bennett disappears. It turns out that Maya accidentally killed him when he tried to assault her. She pushed him and he hit his head on the side of the desk. She had been dating Fernando, the doorman, and called him to help dispose of the body. Heather Poppy and Maya decide to pretend it didn’t happen, his body is found and ruled a suicide.