REVIEW: Everyone a Stranger by Kevin O’Brien
Washington D.C., 1943: Virginia Abrams believed the war had taken all it could from her when her husband was killed at Guadalcanal. One year later, she’s in a dark, unexpected quandary—pregnant and on the run to avoid a ruthless political family that wants to erase all connections between her and the man who assaulted her.
Changing her name, Virginia moves to Seattle to start over. Against her better instincts, she’s pulled into the lives of her new neighbors in an apartment complex—especially Tim, a young boy whose mother dies suddenly in a fall. Virginia fears that her whereabouts have been discovered, and she was the intended target . . .
But there are secrets between the residents too—stormy affairs, mysterious visitors, whispers and rumors. Tim is convinced there are saboteurs among them, hiding in plain sight. Virginia wants to discount his teenage imagination and her own rising paranoia, yet there’s something menacing here . . .
Torn between wanting to help the boy and safeguarding her anonymity, Virginia tentatively begins piecing the puzzle together with the help of some of her neighbors. But now others are dying in an escalating series of “accidents.” No one is entirely who they seem to be. No one can be trusted. And though she doesn’t know it yet, her own life is hanging by the thinnest thread . . .
CW / TW- rape,
Spoiler: Show
Dear Mr. O’Brien,
Two years ago I enjoyed watching a Seattle mother and her children living in the home-front before uncovering a serial killer in “The Enemy at Home.” Seeing that this book would also be set in wartime Seattle and also a thriller, I asked to read it.
Virginia Moore Abrams makes a terrible mistake when she agrees to go out with a brash, rich man who isn’t used to hearing “no.” As Virginia tells someone, who tries to judge her, I fought and I didn’t “ask for it.” Needing money to care for the baby she’s now carrying, Virginia reaches out for help and finds herself in a world of horror before fleeing Washington, DC. Ending up in Seattle, she fortuitously gets an apartment and a job and then realizes that she’s now enmeshed in murder while a teen who lives in the complex is sure that Nazi spies are hiding there. Can they figure out what’s going on and keep from being killed themselves?
I have to say straight off that most of the main characters in the book, at times, made me either shake my head at their actions or were fairly unlikeable to me. Some have their reasons for being tetchy and I’ll also be honest and say that characters’ reactions of disbelief and “frozen deer in the headlights” are probably what might happen in real life but at times I wanted to shake some folks. More than one person is lucky to have lived to The End.
The plot starts one way and then sharply zig-zags in another direction which, yes I can see as “Rear Window”ish. At one point Virginia/Ginny is horrified when she realizes that lots of people around her die and that she’s indirectly responsible for some of these deaths. But when you have a high profile political power broker and his minions (and where do these people find these devoted minions??) after you, willing to do anything to get you, and not caring who else needs to be silenced, yeah then people die.
There are a lot of characters in the story though luckily they are doled out a few at a time which let me get my feet under me as I worked to remember who is who. Though it’s not explicitly spelled out, I think there are at least two LGBTQIA+ couples, one of whom is also interracial. Fairly early on, I figured out who was doing what and how. Clues are laid out but sometimes with a heavy hand that screams “this is important!” Some key facts about characters were revealed a bit earlier than I expected and I wondered what was going to keep my attention for the next 120 pages.
Well the best part of the book is the end when everything comes together and all the clues which have been salted through the story pay off. The last quarter is a race to thwart the villains with roadblocks to be overcome, evidence to be collected, and something of Major Importance in Seattle to be saved. Still things were more than a bit convoluted along the way and there was a weird bit of villain exposition shoved in at the end after we already knew most of it anyway. Some suspension of disbelief will be required. Yes, I wanted to know how things would end but this one wasn’t quite as enjoyable to me as “The Enemy at Home.” B-
~Jayne
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