The Accomplice: A Novel

Lisa Lutz

Jan 2022 · Sold by Ballantine Books

About this ebook

Everyone has the same questions about best friends Owen and Luna: What binds them together so tightly? Why weren’t they ever a couple? And why do people around them keep turning up dead? In this riveting novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Passenger, every answer raises a new, more chilling question.
 
“Masterfully plotted, The Accomplice is both a keep-you-guessing mystery and a keenly and tenderly observed character study.”—Attica Locke, author of Bluebird, Bluebird and Heaven, My Home

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: PopSugar

Owen Mann is charming, privileged, and chronically dissatisfied. Luna Grey is secretive, cautious, and pragmatic. Despite their differences, they form a bond the moment they meet in college. Their names soon become indivisible—Owen and Luna, Luna and Owen—and stay that way even after an unexplained death rocks their social circle.

They’re still best friends years later, when Luna finds Owen’s wife brutally murdered. The police investigation sheds light on some long-hidden secrets, but it can’t penetrate the wall of mystery that surrounds Owen. To get to the heart of what happened and why, Luna has to dig up the one secret she’s spent her whole life burying.

The Accomplice brilliantly examines the bonds of shared history, what it costs to break them, and what happens when you start wondering how well you know the one person who truly knows you.

Ratings and reviews

jumping in time was a mind f... glad time was posted at beginning of shift. made me question my friendship loyalty. a truly good read, kept me spellbound as the layers were peeled back for more revelations.

Lies, lies, lies. Everything seems to be twisted and steeped in deceit in Lisa Lutz’s latest: The Accomplice. For many years, Luna and Owen have had a bond that is preternaturally strong, but not physically intimate. Their dedication to each other is constantly tested by misunderstandings, omissions, and jealousies. Everyone else in their lives come second, even spouses and children. Unfortunately, both are also fiercely keeping things from each other that may eventually erode their deep connection. There also just happens to be an excessive number of accidental deaths that are left in their wake. In The Accomplice, Lutz is trying too hard to reiterate her messages of trust and fidelity. The dating pool must be tiny in their town, since everyone is having an affair with each other’s partners or siblings. The tight-knit characters betray each other and cover up repeatedly. There’s blackmail, revenge, and too many secrets to permit a clear protagonist. Just keeping track of all the infidelities is made that much harder by disjointed flashbacks and a perpetually shifting timeline. The secondary characters seem to exist purely as tools for artificially cranking up tension, and their back stories are barely tethered to the main story. I have enjoyed many of Lisa Lutz’s other books and series, but The Accomplice was a bit too confusing and reliant on coincidence for my tastes.

About the author

Lisa Lutz is the New York Times bestselling, Alex Award–winning author of the Spellman Files series and The Swallows, as well as the novels How to Start a Fire and The Passenger. She has also written for film and TV, including The Deuce for HBO and Dare Me on USA. She lives in New York’s Hudson Valley.