What My Sister Knew

“No suspense fan should miss this book.”

There are an abundance of suspense/thriller writers, but none is better than Nina Laurin at fooling the reader as her plotline takes numerous 90 degree turns, while she builds suspense one red herring at a time. What My Sister Knew is a thriller build on shifting sands; just as one feels solid ground under his feet, the earth cracks open, and the reader falls into the abyss where nothing and no one is trustworthy.

Andrea Boudreaux is 27-year-old social worker and runs a shelter for troubled juveniles. Her fiancé, Milt, is handsome, athletic, and rich, passionately loves her even though she is neither beautiful nor rich. It’s as he doesn’t see the pink scar tissue that covers her neck and upper chest, and overlooks her past.

Milt is confused when Andrea breaks the engagement. What has he done to deserve her treatment? She can hardly tell him that she is afraid that her past is about to catch up with her. She has been waiting 15 years, and she knows time is running out. He’s coming; she knows he is.

Andrea has another name, one that is notorious even though she is not guilty of murder. She is Andrea Warren, and her twin brother, Eli, got out of prison three years ago. For three years she has held her breath each time the telephone rings. It might be him.

Driving home from her shift at the shelter late one night, Andrea thinks she sees her brother dart in front of her car. She serves to avoid hitting him and crashes into a tree instead. When she awakes in the hospital, her adopted mother, Cynthia Boudreaux, takes her home despite Andrea’s protests.

The police arrive, but neither Cynthia nor Milt will tell Andrea why. Taken up to her old room, Andrea turns on the television to a news channel despite Milt’s attempts to stop her.

“. . . currently wanted by the police. If you know anything about the suspect’s whereabouts, please call.”

“I look up at the TV screen, and my twin brother’s face is splashed across it, life-size. It’s a shock that makes my breath catch. This is my brother as an adult, my brother who I last saw fifteen years ago after the fire that killed our parents, covered in soot,  clutching a lighter in his hand, his knuckles start white against the dirt and ash . . . deep down, I’ve always known this would eventually happen. What did you do this time, Eli? What the hell did you do?”

The police know that Andrea told the paramedics that she saw her brother dart in front of her car. Andrea denies it, but Detective Figueroa doesn’t believe her. The female detective says that Andrea’s timeline is off. There are missing minutes between the time of the crash and the time she reached the convenience store whose clerk called 911. “You’re helping him. I don’t know exactly how—yet. Or especially why.”

Andrea pleads ignorance. When the police leave, she takes Cynthia’s car and flees back to her townhouse. She is terrified, but not of her brother. If he had wanted to kill her, he could have done it almost any time in the last three years. She owes Eli, and she knows it.

Andrea learns that she is on an involuntary leave of absence from the shelter. Its director, informed by the police as to Andrea’s true identity, wants her gone until the whole situation resolves itself.

One of the teens from the shelter, Sunny, calls Andrea for help in hiding from her abusive boyfriend. Against her better judgement, Andrea lets the girl spend the night at her townhouse. Sunny steals money and clothes, including rhinestone studded belt, and sneaks out while Andrea is gone.

Desperate to learn if Eli is really guilty of murdering the girl found in his apartment, and what caused him to snap 15 years before and set the fire that killed their parents, Andrea interviews the victim’s mother as well as the twins’ old school counselor.

The counselor, now dying from cancer, tells Andrea that Eli had been caught in an attempted rape shortly before the fire, but the episode had been covered up to avoid a scandal.

Then Andrea receives a phone call from Eli. This is not a one-time call. Eli has been in touch with her practically since the day he was released from prison. He has been taking money from her twice a month. Then Sunny, who turns out to be Eli’s girlfriend, demands money for not revealing who Andrea really is. Finally, Andrea snaps and refuses to give Sunny any more money.

Andrea goes to meet Eli at their childhood apartment where they lived before their mother re-married. Andrea rents it under the name Andrea Warren. The apartment is empty—except for Sunny’s body in the bathtub, strangled with the belt she stole from Andrea.

At last, Andrea recognizes what game Eli is playing with her. “He killed her, I realize with sudden clarity and clam. He killed her just like he killed the other one . . . He never wanted me to prove he was innocent. He wanted me to take the fall.”

Author Laurin intersperses chapters of the events 15 years before that lead up to the murder of Andrea’s mother and stepfather. Each of these chapters reveal more of Eli’s character, his dominant personality, his unrelenting anger at his stepfather. The chapters also bring Andrea’s character into focus, and truth of the past makes clear the truth of the present.

Laurin writes in prose that is both eloquent and concise, and is a genius at hiding the truth in plain sight if only the reader would think of the psychology of the characters rather than the evidence. No suspense fan should miss this book.