"I'd Know You Anywhere" by Laura Lippman

373 pages

Eliza Benedict lives a peaceful, ordinary suburban life with her husband, Peter, and children,13-year-old Iso and 8-year-old Albie. But her tranquility is shattered when she receives a letter from the last person she ever expects—or wants—to hear from: Walter Bowman. He's the man who kidnapped her when she was fifteen and held her hostage for almost six weeks. He'd killed several other young girls at that point, but for some reason he let Elizabeth live. Now he's on death row in Virginia for the rape ad murder of his final victim. Though Eliza wants nothing to do with him, she knows that Walter was most unpredictable when ignored. Desperate to shelter her children from this trauma in her past, she cautiously makes contact with Walter. She's always wondered why Walter let her live, and thinks that perhaps now he'll tell her—and share the truth about his other victims. Yet as Walter presses her for more contact, Eliza realizes that he is after more than simply forgiveness.

I checked this book out because I thought that the premise was very interesting, and it was, but that turned out to be the most intriguing part about it. I enjoyed the way that it went back and forth from the present day to the summer of 1985 (when Eliza was kidnapped), but I thought the ending was anticlimactic. Overall, I thought it was a quick, entertaining read, but there wasn't much about it that made it stand out as a good book.