In this suspenseful suburban mystery, author Kaira Rouda weaves the lives of a diverse cast of characters, including three women whose career and personal paths are intertwined.
Laura is an ambitious TV news anchor who wants to make the big time; her roommate, Angie, is a waitress set on snagging a man who will make her rich, and Ellen is a beautiful but troubled housewife who desperately wants a child. Then there is Maggie—a local gossip columnist, and successful real estate agent Janet, whose husband’s caught cheating with Angie. Although these very different women have dissimilar occupations and preoccupations, they all share in common the fact that the choices they make—and fail to make—have life-changing consequences. Enter the men and mates in the story, and things really begin to boil, especially when one abruptly dies in the middle of a tryst (yes, yet again with Angie!). But is it an accident? Murder is definitely a possibility, but which of these lovely ladies—if any—had something to do with it?
Rouda skillfully steers in and out of each character’s story, adding an occasional flashback to an enigmatic child’s abuse (the reader finds out who this is, but not until the final pages). Rouda keeps readers guessing about relationships, motives, and of course, choices, and how “the road not taken” can make all the difference indeed.
ALL THE DIFFERENCE is a quick and sexy mystery is a challenge to unravel, and proves there’s nothing humdrum about the ‘burbs.
Reviewed by Kathryn E. Livingston for IndieReader.