Alafair Burke's THE NOTE

 

 

 

By Margaret S. Hamilton

 

“It was meant to be a harmless prank. Not even a prank, not initially. An inside joke, only for the three of them. But now she was locking her apartment door behind two departing police officers.” (p.3)

 

I enjoy Burke’s books about women, their marriages and friendships laced with crime. In her latest, The Note, she pulls off a masterful plot full of twists, dead ends, and recalculations.

 

The book starts, as many do, when three friends who met at a teenage music camp have a reunion at a beach house in the Hamptons. The point of view character, May Hanover, like Alafair Burke, is a former prosecutor turned law school professor. May is eager to please, a hard-working young woman engaged to a decent but unexciting guy. May has been out of touch with her friends for years, which provokes a crucial question: how much loyalty does May still feel for her camp friends?

 

Kelsey Ellis is the heir to a family commercial real estate firm and a widow. While in law school, May was willing to reject important career opportunities to accommodate her friend’s needs. Is May still compelled to do so?

 

Lauren Berry is older than the others, an accomplished musician and music director of the Houston Symphony, involved in a long-running affair with a wealthy married symphony supporter. At music camp, May was an excellent, though not outstanding, pianist. Lauren was her instructor and role model.

 

In addition to their shared music camp experience (which includes a dead counselor), the three friends have all been publicly “canceled” on social media for different reasons. Each has a negative reputation, which is revealed as the events of the narrative unfold.

 

In The Note, after several rounds of drinks, the three women leave a snarky note written on a cocktail napkin under the windshield wiper of the car driven by the guy who stole their parking place. All hell breaks loose. Nothing is as it seems. Past history returns to affect present reality.

 

Add a body, missing witnesses, and the demanding mother of the victim. Social media runs rampant, attacking the three women and revealing their perceived misdeeds, past and present.

 

Burke’s insights as an attorney shape the last half of the book, as the county prosecutor builds a murder case against a suspect. Including the courtroom drama lifts the book from the traditional prep school friends/sorority sisters summer reunion into a story about life choices with potentially devastating consequences.

 

With the cooperation of May and Kelsey, the police gather enough evidence to close the case.

 

Readers and writers, do you enjoy summer camp/sorority sisters’ reunion beach reads?

 

Margaret S. Hamilton’s debut traditional amateur sleuth mystery, What the Artist Left Behind, is on submission.

 

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