Julie Clark burst onto the thriller scene with THE LAST FLIGHT in 2020. She proved that this success was no fluke with the 2022 publication of THE LIES I TELL. And now, three years later, she reminds us that novels like hers are well worth the wait with the release of THE GHOSTWRITER, her most intricately plotted thriller yet.

“I know what your dad did…. Your dad killed his brother and sister. Murdered them in their own home.” This is how 10-year-old Olivia learns that her father, Vincent Taylor, an author and a near-professional drunk, may also be a murderer. In June 1975, his 17-year-old brother, Danny, and 14-year-old sister, Poppy, were stabbed to death in their home. Whereas Danny was a golden kid and Poppy was an activist in the making, Vincent was always known as the weird one: the one who never quite fit in, who always took the joke too far, often to the point of cruelty.

"Oh, how I enjoyed this intricately plotted, metatextual thriller!... Clark is a master of sleight of hand and redirection, yet we still soak up every word.... It may be only the first week of June, but it is definitely not too soon to call THE GHOSTWRITER the thriller of the summer."

Despite the town’s gossip, Vincent was never seriously considered a suspect, but that doesn’t explain his behavior after the double homicide. He never seemed as upset as you’d expect, and even after the deaths of his parents, he never attempted to solve the murders. Instead, he married his high school girlfriend, had Olivia only five years later, and became a nationally bestselling horror author, often outranking the King himself. But is he a traumatized man trying to channel his pain into something more? Or is he a killer hiding in plain sight?

Questions like these have never interested Olivia. Having seen the depths of Vincent's cruelty, she doesn’t believe him to be a killer, just a terrible father. And when he sent her off to boarding school in Europe, she took his dismissal seriously. Olivia is now 44, and she hasn’t seen or heard from him in decades, which is just the way she likes it. That’s not to say the apple has fallen too far from the tree. In the years since Europe, Olivia has not only become a bestselling writer --- a ghostwriter, to be specific --- she also has completely torpedoed her own career by going after another author in the name of feminism.

It has been just over a year since that fateful literary conference. Olivia is nearly $1 million in debt, and there is no work on the horizon. So when she gets the call from her agent about a ghostwriting opportunity, she’s all ears...until she hears the subject. Vincent needs help finishing his memoir and has requested her specifically. Familiar with the smear of controversy, Olivia has taken great pains to rid herself of her father’s name and history --- even her own partner doesn’t know the truth. But as a writer, she loves a good story, and seeing what he really wants is a pull she can’t ignore.

The truth is that Vincent is seriously ill, and his life --- not to mention his ability to write --- is coming to a close. But he’s not writing his final horror novel or even a memoir about his career. Instead, he is finally ready to discuss the events surrounding the murders of Danny and Poppy. He tells Olivia that he already has written the book, and she just needs to clean it up. But when she opens the manuscript, she finds incoherent ramblings, disjointed scenes, and practically no story. Even worse, Vincent is adamant that Olivia not discuss the events or subjects of the book with anyone; that includes verifying his stories by questioning people who knew him and his siblings back then. On top of that, given the nature of Vincent’s illness, his memory is unreliable, and he is prone to fits.

How will Olivia pen a story that not only paints a portrait of three happy, loving siblings and the tragedy that befell them, but also one that humanizes her father, maybe even proves his innocence? Because the more Vincent talks --- whether it’s lucid, clear storytelling or midnight delusions --- the more it becomes clear that the narrative surrounding his brother and sister, especially Golden Boy Danny, was never truly accurate.

Chapters from Vincent’s youth, and even a few from his siblings, paint a very different portrait of the Taylor family than the one blasted across headlines by the media…but also a difficult one to confirm. As Olivia digs through her father’s belongings and memories, she discovers that Poppy, too, was not as naive as the newspapers would have you believe. Like her would-be niece, Poppy was a keen observer of the world around her, and her diary references films and photos that she says expose a massive town secret. But is any of this even related to her murder, or that of her brother? Was there anyone --- even Vincent --- who would want them both dead? The clues are all there; you just won’t see the story connecting them until it’s too late.

Oh, how I enjoyed this intricately plotted, metatextual thriller! It’s no secret that readers love books about books, but this is a book about story: who tells it, what is inevitably left out, and how we can ever truly confirm the details of our lives. Clark’s use of an unreliable character, a popular thriller trope, feels fresh and new here. Vincent’s memories are erratic --- sometimes crisp and true, other times hazy and tinged with paranoia. Sorting through them all with Olivia, we are pulled straight into the premise and right along for the ride. But Clark doesn’t lord the truth over us, instead penning a true puzzle-like thriller that always feels solvable…until it doesn’t.

Clark is a master of sleight of hand and redirection, yet we still soak up every word. Not many authors can inspire this sort of faith in their audience, especially when presenting them with a cold case and a man whose memory is fading before their eyes. But this is the power of Clark's prose; she’s just that good. It may be only the first week of June, but it is definitely not too soon to call THE GHOSTWRITER the thriller of the summer.