The Ex

Publishers Weekly 10/26/2015 Near the start of bestseller Burke’s gripping standalone, New York City DA Olivia Randall receives a desperate phone call from the school-age daughter of her ex-fiancé, Jack Harris, whose wife, Molly, was killed in a mass shooting three years earlier at Manhattan’s Penn Station. Jack has now been implicated in a triple murder—one of the victims was partly responsible for Molly’s death—and his only defense is his flimsy claim that at the time he had an assignation with a mysterious woman he first saw drinking champagne and reading a book on a Hudson River pier. As Olivia sets out to clear his name, she begins to wonder whether Jack is not the devoted, kind, and decent man she remembers. Internally conflicted but outwardly brash, Olivia makes an appealingly bold protagonist, and while the final twist may disappoint some readers, Burke (If I Were You) keeps the suspense high throughout, prying open mysteries of relationships and perception. Agent: Philip Spitzer, Philip Spitzer Literary Agency. (Jan.)