Book Review: After Anna

Synopsis:

Nobody cuts deeper than family . . .

Dr. Noah Alderman, a widower and single father, has remarried a wonderful woman, Maggie Ippolitti. For the first time in a long time, he and his young son are happy. Despite her longing for the daughter she hasn’t seen since she was a baby, Maggie is happy, too. She’s even more overjoyed when she unexpectedly gets another chance to be a mother to the child she thought she’d lost forever, Anna, her only daughter.

Maggie and Noah know that having Anna around will change their lives, but they could never foresee that everything would go wrong .. . . quickly. Anna is a gorgeous seventeen-year-old who balks at living under their rules. Maggie, in her joy at having her daughter back, ignores the red flags that hint at trouble brewing in her once-perfect marriage and home.

Events take a heartbreaking turn when Anna is murdered. Noah is accused and tried for the heinous crime.

Maggie must face not only the devastation of losing her daughter, but the realization that Anna’s murder may have been at the hands of the husband she loves. In the wake of the tragedy, new information drives Maggie to search for the truth, leading her to discover something darker than she could have ever imagined.

After Anna is not just a groundbreaking domestic thriller. It’s also an examination of emotional justice and legal intrigue.

Review:

Lisa Scottoline’s more than 30 novels — stand-alone works and series — have appeared on all major best-selling lists. A 1981 cum laude graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Law School, her legal background brings authenticity to her popular Rosato & DeNunzie series, as well as her other fictional stories, including After Anna. The story begins as a domestic drama, but quickly turns into an intense mystery and legal thriller.

Scottoline never fails to deliver suspenseful stories with jaw-dropping plot twists. After Anna is not only no exception, but may well be her most nuanced and tautly constructed work to date. And some developments in the story are extremely shocking — readers will not see them coming.

The tale about Dr. Noah Alderman and Maggie Ippolitti is told not only by alternating narrators, but in contrasting chronological order. Scottoline seamlessly masters that exceedingly difficult approach to storytelling. Noah and Maggie are happily raising Noah’s young son from his prior marriage. But one thing is missing from their life — Maggie’s daughter, Anna. Maggie lost custody of Anna to Anna’s father years ago and has not seen her since she was a baby.

When Anna reaches out following the death of her wealthy father, Maggie is overjoyed to have another chance to parent the daughter she has desperately missed. Noah is completely supportive, but Anna’s inclusion in their home and family life disrupts their quiet, ordered existence. At the age of seventeen, she is murdered shortly after coming to live with them.

Anna’s death tears Maggie apart. Naturally, she mourns the loss of her child, as well as the chance to really get to know her and spend time with her. She can never reclaim the years they lost. But she has to confront an inconceivable question: Could her loving husband really have murdered her daughter? Maggie must find answers as Noah stands trial, fighting for his life. Maggie’s discoveries propel her dangerous and disturbing quest to uncover the whole truth about her daughter’s life, death, and the man she married.

The action never slows. Rather, Scottoline builds the dramatic tension at a relentless pace, inserting revelations at expertly-timed intervals until she delivers an astonishing conclusion.