The Better Sister by Alafair Burke

 

Chloe Taylor seemed to have it all.  A prestigious job as a writer at a woman's magazine and fame for her series on sexual harassment.  A successful attorney husband.  A stepson she had raised from the time he was two and whom she considered her own child.  A Manhattan apartment and a house out on the coast.  What more could anyone want?

But under the surface, things are not as enviable as they seem.  Chloe got her marriage and stepson by marrying her sister's ex-husband after taking his side in the marriage breakup.  Her sister, Nicky, was taking drugs and drinking and had endangered her son's life in the backyard pool.  Chloe and Adam had cut Nicky out of Ethan, the son's life after that.  Chloe's job is high stress and she's been getting a lot of negative press and social media lately.  Adam seems to resent her success and money and hates the job he took to make more money to compete with her.  Now Adam and Ethan seem to be caught in a typical teenager stormy relationship that fills the house with tension.

But when Chloe walks in on Adam's lifeless body at their beach house, she knows things won't ever be the same.  There's no way to avoid the negative press, especially when the police focus their efforts on Ethan and arrest him for the murder of his father.  Chloe must reach out to Nicky after years of estrangement as they fight to free Ethan of the charges against him.  Who killed Adam if Ethan didn't?

This was my first Alafair Burke novel.  There were lots of twists and turns and a main character that I had a hard time relating to.  As the reader progresses, more and more secrets are revealed as Chloe's perfect life is peeled back layer by layer.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.