Review: The Accomplice by Lisa Lutz

Title: The Accomplice by Lisa Lutz
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Genre: Contemporary, Mystery
Length: 368 pages
Book Rating:

Complimentary Review Copy Provided by Publisher Through NetGalley

Summary:

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.

Owen Mann is charming, privileged, and chronically dissatisfied. Luna Grey is secretive, cautious, and pragmatic. Despite their differences, they begin forming 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.

Years later, they’re still best friends when Luna finds Owen’s wife brutally murdered. The police investigation sheds some light on 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 examines the bonds of shared history, what it costs to break them, and what happens when you start wondering if you ever truly knew the only person who truly knows you.

Review:

The Accomplice by Lisa Lutz is a captivating mystery that features an unlikely friendship.

In 2002, outgoing Owen Mann becomes friends with closed off Luna Grey. Their friendship does not seem like it will last past college, yet seventeen years later, they are still close friends.  In 2019, Luna is married to a doctor, Sam Burroughs, and she is friends with Owen’s wife, Irene. After stopping by one morning, Irene reveals unexpected information then heads out for her daily run. That evening, Owen and Luna get together for a drink, but neither has heard from Irene since that morning. The next day, Luna finds her lifeless body and her actions afterward make the two detectives assigned to the case a little suspicious of her and Owen.

Luna is self-contained and offers up little information about herself. She is shocked when Owen befriends her but they are soon thick as thieves. Their college years are a bit of a drunken blur with one very notable exception. In the aftermath, Owen and Luna are physically distant yet stay in touch. Owen continues drinking excessively and indulging in one-night stands. Luna moves in with friends and indulges in an under the radar romance with an unexpected person. Although their lives go in different directions, the one constant in their lives is their unbreakable friendship.

After Irene’s murder, Detectives Margot Burns and Noah Goldman look very closely at Owen and Luna. Owen’s answers to their questions are eyebrow raising and they cannot rule him out as a suspect. Luna is more forthcoming but Burns and Goldman find it difficult to believe the pair have never been romantically involved. Unable to find any proof that either Owen or Luna killed Irene, will they ever catch her killer?

The Accomplice is a brilliantly plotted mystery that is quite clever. Luna is more likable than Owen and they are each a little quirky. The various characters are hiding plenty of secrets that eventually come out. The story seamlessly moves back and forth in time and the pacing is brisk. With stunning revelations,  Lisa Lutz brings this engaging mystery to a very surprising conclusion.