In a viciously delicious thriller, Lee Irby (The Van) introduces a charming, refined protagonist who could be a monster, a deranged jilted lover or simply one of love's losers. From beginning to end, the only thing readers can rely on is that the narrator is a liar.
Edwin Stith is a mild-mannered, unassuming English professor at a "leafy liberal arts school" in Ithaca, N.Y., whose failed writing career, recent divorce and sexual impotency provide ready fodder for sympathy. A dutiful son, he's headed home to Richmond, Va., for his mother's wedding. However, he's aware this story in and of itself has no teeth, so he mentions to the reader that he may also be on the run for murdering his ex-wife, Bev. Or maybe he didn't. Or maybe he killed a waitress at a truck stop--or maybe not. Maybe Eddie himself is the murder victim. "It doesn't much matter," he devilishly assures us. "Mine, hers, his. You want a body and I want to give you one."
To find out, readers must come along for the ride as Eddie reconnects with his wealthy, aging mother, who's marrying a man Eddie's age; his long-lost high school sweetheart, Leigh Rose; and a handful of old school nemeses and acquaintances who mean Eddie and his rekindled romance no good. Riding shotgun with Eddie will have even the doughtiest reader feeling claustrophobic, hostage to a man who will say anything to keep an audience. Irby sculpts every thrill of terror out of pure psychological manipulation, adeptly batting the reader around like a catnip mouse. Unreliable is tense, hypnotic and elegantly assembled. --Jaclyn Fulwood, blogger at Infinite Reads