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Taffy Brodesser-Akner, author of Long Island Compromise

In 1980, a wealthy businessman named Carl Fletcher is kidnapped from his driveway, brutalized and held for ransom. He is returned to his wife and kids less than a week later, and the family moves on with their lives. But now, nearly 40 years later, it’s clear that perhaps nobody ever got over anything. Carl has spent the ensuing years secretly seeking closure to the matter of his kidnapping, while his wife, Ruth, has spent her potential protecting her husband’s emotional health. Their three grown children aren’t doing much better. As they hover at the delicate precipice of a different kind of survival, they learn that the family fortune has dwindled to just about nothing, and they must face desperate questions about how much their wealth has played a part in both their lives’ successes and failures.

Week of May 19, 2025

Paperback releases for the week of May 19th include LIES AND WEDDINGS by Kevin Kwan, an outrageous comedy of manners about a forbidden affair that erupts volcanically amid a decadent tropical wedding; MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT, a jaw-dropping thriller from Riley Sager, in which a man must contend with the long-ago disappearance of his childhood best friend --- and the dark secrets lurking just beyond the safe confines of his picture-perfect neighborhood; Taffy Brodesser-Akner's LONG ISLAND COMPROMISE, an exhilarating novel about one American family, the dark moment that shatters their suburban paradise, and the wild legacy of trauma and inheritance; and the paperback original WHISTLE by Linwood Barclay, a supernatural chiller in which a woman and her young son move to a small town looking for a fresh start, only to be haunted by disturbing events and strange visions when they find a mysterious train set in a storage shed.