They were six friends from the Midwest who moved to New York in the Seventies with high hopes of making a big-time splash in the music industry. Though the dream faded, the bonds between this tightly-knit group did not. Or so it seemed. For one brilliantly sunny day, solid, dependable Alice Ellis discovers the grisly murder of two of the group, shot dead in an apartment to which any number of friends, acquaintances and strangers had easy access – with a set of duplicate keys. Suspicion falls on all of the friends as their infidelities, lies and shocking secrets begin to rise to the surface.

In this clever and unusual thriller, Jane Smiley examines the aftermath of a murder with wit, stealth and the remorselessly precise eye of an expert emotional psychologist.

“Clap hands for a rarity: an amusing, incisive and sharply written study of Sixties leftovers couched in an excellently wrought thriller format. Smiley has perfectly caught the mood and desperation of a generation floundering somewhere between adolescence and the menopause that other more smug, ponderous studies such as 'The Big Chill' have failed to pin down.”
TIME OUT

“This may be the anatomy of a murder but more important and far more compelling is the anatomy of friendship, betrayal and the bittersweet smell of near-success. A first-rate cliffhanger.”
NEW YORK TIMES

“The suspense of this unusual mystery comes from Smiley’s quietly gripping revelations of character. At the heart of the book is a piercing dissection of the friendship between Susan and Alice, a relationship whose limpid surface hides ancient complexities of feeling and memory. Alice’s candour and Susan’s ambiguities lead them into unsettling discoveries, all in the course of solving a particularly crafty and cold-blooded crime.”
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE