Great summer read! Over a holiday weekend, a child goes missing, and the story is told from various POV and it’s hard to know who to trust and certainly who to believe. My first read by this author and would read more and more. . Moves quickly, plenty of twists in a psychological thriller/detective story.

Usually, when I read a book, there is at least one character that I like. In this book there weren’t any. I thoroughly disliked everyone. The book is also saturated, and I do mean saturated with an overload of sex scenes and bad language. I honestly couldn’t wait to find out who was behind the murder so I could wash my hands of the entire thing and clear my mind from this story by reading something with at least one good person.

The only good comments I can make are: I will admit the author did a nice job of telling the story, I really like when authors have different point-of-views in the book.

Thank you to NetGalley, Gregg Olsen and Thomas & Mercer for this ARC.

I love all of Gregg Olsen's work (fiction and non-fiction), so I was truly excited to read this novel. It's by far one of my favorites so far. I wish there had been a more concrete ending, as I feel like we were left wondering if ______ really was lying the whole time.

As someone who lives in the Seattle suburbs, I love reading about places that I've been or lived. I've eaten at the Hama Hama Oyster Saloon many times on my way to Port Townsend or Fort Flagler State Park, and so reading about these places in a fictional setting really makes the story more interesting to me.

Another fantastic read by one of my favorite authors.

This book was okay - it had intrigue and twists all through out. I didn't really care much about the characters and therefore their story but it kept me reading.

A really good read. Interesting, captivating, good storyline, well written.

My first time reading that author, I want to read more.

I have read Gregg Olsen books before and I really enjoyed this one. I loved the characters and the ending came as a complete surprise. If you're looking for a good read, you can't go wrong with this one!
Thanks, NetGalley for the copy!

I have not read anything by Gregg Olsen before, and after this, I will definitely be adding him to my must read list! What a twisty thriller! I never knew what was coming next.
It took me two nights to complete! Just when I thought I had it figured out it turned again. The protagonist is complicated yet vulnerable, the lead investigator is complex, the witnesses are interesting and the whole plot is fantastic. It was smart, and engaging and I highly recommend for lovers of mystery/thrillers.
Thank you NetGalley for the advanced reading copy!

Wow, this was a really interesting and intriguing book. This was my first ever book by Gregg Olsen and I enjoyed every bit of it. The characters were well created and the story was wonderfully crafted. The twists and turns were unpredictable and really enjoyable. All the characters were quite detestable and every one had a dark side of themselves that was even better. Overall a wonderful read and I hope he makes this into a series. A big thank you to Net Galley and Amazon Publishing, Thomas & Mercer for giving me this ARC in exchange of my honest review.

One of my new favorite books! This author has such a way with words the pages flew by in no time! I can’t wait to see the next work by this author! This was such a joy to read!

I enjoyed this story, though I was able to discern most of the plot and what was going to happen. I didn’t really have any “ah-ha” moments.

When his wife is killed, Adam must convince his long-lost childhood friend turned detective, Lee that he had anything to do with her disappearance.

Though things are difficult with Adam and Lee has to deal with her past, this story has a great pace and is a great read.

Interesting 3.5 rounded up to 4★'s.

"I hold my daughter tightly to keep her from the jagged shards of my wife’s broken wineglass. It’s the only tangible indication that something terrible has happened. I gulp for air. The salmonberry thorns that clawed me as I ran up from the beach to the highway have shredded my bare arms. The striations of oozing blood leak slowly and don’t require a bandage, though one’s offered to me. Someone puts a blanket over my shoulders as I sit on the five-foot-high bulkhead that separates the crescent beach from the three cabins behind me. It’s a kind gesture, and I don’t resist it— even though I know it won’t help calm my trembling. I don’t look up. Instead, I sit there, wondering if I’ve done everything I can."

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Lying Next to Me by Gregg Olsen is an interesting novel but it wasn't what I was hoping for.
If I'm honest, there were several characters in this book who made it hard to enjoy it fully. I am sure that the author meant them to be abhorrent but it made it difficult to hold my attention. Having said that, I'm glad I stuck with it as it was worth it for the surprising conclusion.

With thanks and appreciation to NetGalley, Thomas & Mercer, and Gregg Olsen for this advanced digital copy for me to read and review.

Lying Next to Me by Gregg Olsen is an exciting thriller. Adam and Sophie Warner rent a cabin over Memorial Day weekend in Washington State's Hood Canal. While Adam and their 3 year old daughter were out on the water, Adam sees a man dragging his wife Sophie away. What happened to her, and who kidnapped her. This book had so many twists and turns that kept me reading. I was hooked from page one. I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a good thriller.

I reviewed a digital arc provided by NetGalley and the publisher. Thank you.

Great story but I felt it was a bit long winded and repetitive. I would definitely read this author again.

Huge fan of Mr. Ollsen.Great book and i love the author. This is certainly a must read for all the bookish bibliophiles out there. I high ly recommend this to people. Thank you for the approval.

Review featured at www.books-n-kisses.com

3.75 Hearts Can you love and hate characters at the same time? Sure you can. Because I loved how much I hated these characters. Every single one of the suspects drove me crazy with their character.

This book was really good. I enjoyed how these characters seemed one thing and then turned into another. And I love when I am not sure if I am right on who-dun-it. And while I was pretty sure I wasn’t positive.

This book kept me interested and turning the page for the story. There were parts that were typical of the genre but if you are a fan of characters you love to hate you will love this story.

Disclaimer:
I received a complimentary copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you Net Galley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and give an honest review of this book.


What starts out as a holiday weekend ends in a horrible murder. The plot twists and turns as the innocents appear to be more involved than it initially appears.

All characters seem to have a history with each other as details become more available. Characters use and manipulate each other for their own purposes.
The only innocent in all of this seems to be Aubrey, the three year old.

This book will keep you interested while trying to figure out the guilty party or parties. I figured it out about 100 pages from the end. See if you can solve the mystery.

A very good book once again from Gregg Olsen
Adam and his daughter are out on the lake when they see his wife Sophie abducted by someone . Who was this person what did they want. Local detectives Lee & Zach are called in on the case . Lee knows Adam from when they where young children Adam saved her life . But will she look at the case through a clear head or not . There is also two more cabins in the vicinity where Sophie was abducted from. One is a couple who turned up late the night before and the other is a Grandma with her grandchildren. Did either of them see anything. There are lots of twists and turns as the detectives look into Adam & Sophie’s lives .

Lying Next to Me by Gregg Olsen was an excellent addition to my summer reading list! I enjoyed the twists and turns of this mystery thriller. A woman is abducted in broad daylight while on a Memorial Day weekend, her husband and young daughter are 100 yards away in a boat frantically trying to get back to shore. As the investigation proceeds we meet Lee, a local detective who was a victim of abduction as a child. Will she be able to bring this case to justice or is she too lost in the past to see the present clearly? In a plot where nothing is as it seems - you can’t be sure until the last page.! I highly recommend this book. I received an ARC, all opinions are my own.

Adam Warner is holding his 3-year-old daughter, Aubrey, and is in shock after seeing someone take his wife, Sophie. The three of them had come to a beach cottage for a few days of relaxation. It was when Adam and Aubrey were in the water on a skiff that he heard Sophie scream and saw her struggling with a man on the beach. The man then hit Sophie and carried her away. As Adam is rushing to get back to shore to rescue his wife, a neighbor calls the sheriff. A detective arrives and Adam recognizes her from his childhood. Her name is Lee.

Of the three rental cabins, one is being rented by a grandmother with her two grandchildren. The third cabin is rented by a married couple, Kristen and Connor. Kristen is an attorney and Connor is a waiter with a drinking problem.

As the police start searching for the man who took Sophie, her parents arrive. Her father, Frank, is a big blowhard bully and her mother is a meek, downtrodden wife. They insist that they take Aubrey with them to their home while the search is on to locate Sophie.

This is a great story that builds with tension as the reader tries to figure out who took Sophie and why. It stumped me right up to the end which, to me, a ‘thrillerholic’, means that the author wrote a terrific book. I hope others will grab this one and enjoy it as much as I did.

Copy provided by NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Note: This novel contains an explicit depiction of child abduction and rape.  Reader discretion is advised. 

Gregg Olsen is an expert at writing thrillers that engage the reader and keep them jumping through narrative hoops with its characters.  Lying Next To Me starts with an abduction and takes us much, much further, deep into the psyches of its imperfect main characters, leaving the reader to wonder who’s good, who’s right and who’s in charge.

We open at the scene of a disaster.  Adam Warner has just witnessed the kidnapping of his wife, Sophie, from the deck of their summer cabin.  The event is startling as it is nightmarish – a man punches Sophie out cold and carried her off while Adam is on the lake with his daughter trying to trap crabs for dinner.  As he holds three-year-old Aubrey in his arms and surveys the damage, Adam can only wonder why he couldn’t act quickly enough, and why his beloved wife has become the victim of such a vicious crime.

The family had been on Memorial Day vacation at Washington’s Hood Canal, an attempt at relaxing and reconnecting with one another, Adam’s obsession with getting ahead at work and Sophie’s desire for more than a humdrum job doing graphic design work for Starbucks having pulled them in different directions over the previous few years.

Detective Lee Husemann, whom Adam knows intimately, and her dryly sarcastic partner Zach Montrose have their suspicions about what might have really happened to Sophie.  The last thing Lee wants to do is point the finger of blame at her old friend, but Adam’s increasingly obvious thirst for revenge has her doubting her ability to trust his version of events.

Lawyer Kristen Moss and her alcoholic husband Connor are on vacation near the Warner family and claim to know nothing about Sophie’s disappearance.  Connor’s alcoholism isn’t just socially embarrassing to Kristen, it’s responsible for a personal tragedy in their lives in the form of a car accident that left his cousin with brain damage.  It also resulted in a felony being affixed to Connor’s permanent record, which means he’s stuck doing menial jobs.  Lately one of those jobs is impregnating his wife - Kristen wants a baby, but so far has not conceived, a rare failure in a life filled with successes.

As we peek into the lives of Kristen, Connor and Adam, a chain of events connecting the Mosses and the Warners begins to appear.  And Lee – still dealing with leftover baggage from being kidnapped by a serial rapist as a child – must try to keep her head above water in order to untangle the clues flying at her thick and fast.

Lying Next to Me is a deep, dark story, filled with unreliable narrators and unexpected, biting bits of grim humor.  The network of characters – from Adam’s blowhard nightmare of a father-in-law to his desperate boss – are unique and distinct.  Almost every single one of them is indelibly paranoid in some manner, ready and willing to lie, manipulate and backstab to come out on top.  Even our heroine, Lee, is so afraid to make personal connections that she spends nights at home with her cat, drinking herself asleep to deal with her flashbacks.  But there was only one character I couldn’t buy, and that was treacley little Aubrey, who feels neither realistically three-years-old nor realistically childlike.

The mystery is very good, and important clues that require a keen eye for detail are sprinkled about in surprising places with unpredictable importance. Twists and turns slalom the reader’s sympathy and sense of trust back and forth between protagonists until they’re dizzy; the end result is shocking but enticing.

Olsen does a pretty decent job covering the effects of rape upon a child and the self-recrimination and pain that comes with such trauma.  This may be triggering for some readers, so caution is advised.

There were two big fat flies in the ointment of the book’s delicious cocktail of suspense and crime: no way would Lee be allowed to stay on the case once she arrives at the scene of the crime and sees Adam.  While one of their connections is extremely private and intimate, there is another, much more public reason that would likely result in her being removed from the case in the real world.

The second is the book’s denouement, which had some nice moments but contained a few details that didn’t work and smelled of loose ends needing to be tied up.  And when Our True Criminal finally gets a chance to speechify they violate one of Roger Ebert’s most infamous laws.

To tell you which one would spoil the surprise of getting there. Lying Next To Me is a solidly wicked, addictive thriller that will keep you guessing.

Buy it at: Amazon
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