Scenes of the Crime: A Novel

Jilly Gagnon

Sep 2023 · Sold by Bantam

About this ebook

An ambitious screenwriter tries to solve her friend’s disappearance by re-creating their fateful final girls’ trip in this riveting locked-room mystery from the author of All Dressed Up.

“Twisty and utterly bingeable . . . Each page will leave you gasping for more.”—Disha Bose, author of Dirty Laundry

It should have been the perfect spring break: Five girlfriends. A remote winery on the Oregon coast. An infinite supply of delicious wine at their manicured fingertips. But then their center—beautiful, magnetic Vanessa Morales—vanished without a trace.

Emily Fischer was perhaps the last person to see her alive. But now, years later, Emily spots Vanessa’s doppelganger at a local café. At the end of her rope working a lucrative yet mind-numbing gig on a network sitcom, Emily is inspired to finally tell the story that’s been percolating inside her for so long: Vanessa’s story. But first, she needs to know what really happened on that fateful night. So she puts a brilliant scheme into motion.

She gets the girls together for a reunion weekend at the scene of the crime under the guise of reconnecting. There’s Brittany, Vanessa’s cousin and the inheritor of the winery; Paige, a former athlete, bullish yet easily manipulated; and Lydia, the wallflower of the group.

One of them knows the truth. But what have they each been hiding? And how much can Emily trust anything she learns from them . . . or even her own memories of Vanessa’s last days?

Suspenseful, propulsive, and interspersed with scenes from Emily’s blockbuster screenplay, Scenes of the Crime is an unforgettable mystery that examines culpability, the shiny rearview mirror of Hollywood storytelling, and the pitfalls of female friendship.

Ratings and reviews

I was excited to jump into this book and loved the whole premise of the story. Unfortunately, it did not live up to my expectations. The mystery itself never really captured my attention to any real degree as I was pretty sure what had happened almost from the beginning. The rest was just going through the motions to get to the end result. While it was still enjoyable enough, it just didn’t hit the mark for me.

I found this to be a not exactly interesting book. It toggles between times in the life of four friends (one is deceased or missing) and the screenplay about the disappearance by one of the friends. I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

About the author

Jilly Gagnon is the author of All Dressed Up and the young adult novel #famous. Her humor writing, personal essays, and op-eds have appeared in Newsweek, Elle, Vanity Fair, Boston magazine, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, The Toast, and The Hairpin, among others. She lives in Salem, Massachusetts, with her family and two black cats.