Thursday, February 23, 2023

56 Days by Catherine Ryan Howard

 

Ciera and Oliver meet in Dublin, both newcomers to the city.  They go on a date or two and it seems to go well.  Then it hits.  Covid has come to Ireland and there's a mandatory shelter in place for two weeks. Oliver suggests that Ciera come to his apartment to stay during that time and she agrees.

But neither are what they are pretending to be.  Both are in Dublin under false names and both are hiding a big secret.  What neither knows is that the secret is about the same event.  

Years before, Oliver had been a killer as a child.  As is normal, his name was protected and he when he was released he should have been able to go about his life.  But even if his name didn't make the papers, there are always people who knew who he was, who knew his family and remembered him from before the crime.  He had been in London for a while but left when he was about to be outed there.  Now he is desperate that the same thing doesn't happen in Dublin.  

Ciara knows Oliver is hiding things, but what he doesn't know is that he is also.  There is also a woman in another apartment in the building who seems to know exactly who Oliver is and who wants to talk with him.  What will be all the secrets end up causing?

This is an excellent thriller.  There are surprises I didn't see coming, many of them.  Each character's background and secrets are slowly revealed.  The story is told in flashbacks, going back and forth between the present day and various days and what happened then in the time Ciara and Oliver know each other.  This book is recommended for thriller readers.

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