"It was meant to be a harmless prank." In Alafair Burke's stellar thriller The Note, three friends clearly are waiting for a parking spot when it is grabbed by an entitled couple. The trio, on a girls' trip to the Hamptons, are so incensed they write notes to the couple. One of them says, simply: "He's cheating. He always does."
The childhood friends--law professor May Hanover, real estate heiress Kelsey Ellis, and musical prodigy Lauren Berry--agree to keep the notes to themselves. But unbeknownst to the other two, one woman sticks that note under the windshield wiper of the offending driver's car. After the driver goes missing, the police trace his movements and eventually show up at May's New York City apartment. The three have good reason to worry that their seemingly innocuous note could cause negative publicity, ruin relationships, destroy careers. They've experienced similar chain reactions before: when Kelsey was a suspect in her husband's murder; after a confrontation between May and a man on the subway went viral; and when Lauren was caught having an affair with a prominent married Texas oilman. As the investigation intensifies, each woman faces more scrutiny.
The Note realistically explores the women's relationship; through the years, it fluctuates from friendship to frenemy-ship as the trio support and betray one another. To avoid being recognized, Kelsey lives "her life in disguise," but Burke (The Wife; Long Gone) reveals how this descriptor applies to May and Lauren, too.
Burke's skillful plotting, punctuated by sharp dialogue, keeps The Note churning to a surprising finale. --Oline H. Cogdill, freelance reviewer