End of Story - A Novel

For fans of Knives Out comes a spellbinding thriller from the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller The Woman in the Window

"I'll be dead in three months. Come tell my story."

So writes Sebastian Trapp, reclusive mystery novelist, to his longtime correspondent Nicky Hunter, an expert in detective fiction. With mere months to live, Trapp invites Nicky to his spectacular San Francisco mansion to help draft his life story . . . while living alongside his beautiful second wife, Diana; his wayward nephew, Freddy; and his protective daughter, Madeleine. Soon Nicky finds herself caught in an irresistible case of real-life "detective-fever."

"You and I might even solve an old mystery or two."

Twenty years earlier-on New Year's Eve 1999-Sebastian's first wife and teenage son vanished from different locations, never to be seen again. Did the perfect crime writer commit the perfect crime? And why has he emerged from seclusion, two decades later, to allow a stranger to dig into his past?

"Life is hard. After all, it kills you."

As Nicky attempts to weave together the strands of Sebastian's life, she becomes obsessed with discovering the truth . . . while Madeleine begins to question what her beloved father might actually know about that long-ago night. And when a corpse appears in the family's koi pond, both women are shocked to find that the past isn't gone-it's just waiting.

Rezension:

"Elegant, absorbing, full of Hitchcockian menace. Once again Finn reinvents the genre in spectacular style."
- Lucy Foley, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Paris Apartment

"A. J. Finn's new novel is beautiful, intense, beguiling. I was mesmerized by End of Story."
- Lisa Jewell, #1 New York Times bestselling author of None of This Is True

"A thrillingly Gothic golden age mystery to lose yourself in." - Jenny Colgan, New York Times bestselling author of The Summer Skies

"Literary magic - a mystery lover's delight . . . Absorbing, stylish, and sparkling with quick wit . . . reminds you of something so utterly essential about a truly masterful mystery - that the end is just the beginning."
- Nita Prose, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Maid and The Mystery Guest


"Fans of detective fiction will be thrilled by Finn's latest!"
- Shari Lapena, New York Times bestselling author of Everyone Here Is Lying "Given the grand surroundings and rich array of eccentric characters, comparisons to the Knives Out film franchise will be inevitable, but Finn cuts much deeper. More than a mere puzzle, this elegant symphony of ghosts and fog concerns the nature of storytelling itself-and the crucial art of crafting one's own narrative. It's a tour de force." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Finn is an assured, witty writer with a gift for entertaining description and sharp instincts about how many references to other mysteries he can get away with. . . . It could be dangerous to name-drop Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle, Raymond Chandler and others. Those legends raise expectations and plenty of writers since them have invented compelling situations that they couldn't figure out how to resolve. Finn, however, knows what he's doing. The way he wraps up End of Story is so satisfying that it fits comfortably in that august company."
- Minneapolis Star Tribune

"There's something irresistible about this made-for-the-movies tingler. Finn knows how to pleasurably wind us up." - USA Today on The Woman in the Window

"The rocket fuel propelling The Woman in the Window... is expertise. . . . Dear other books with unreliable narrators: This one will see you and raise you." - New York Times Book Review on The Woman in the Window

"Superior." - New Yorker on The Woman in the Window

"As the plot seizes us, the prose caresses us. . . [Finn] has not only captured, sympathetically, the interior life of a depressed person, but also written a riveting thriller that will keep you guessing to the very last sentence." - Washington Post on The Woman in the Window

"The Woman in the Window is a tour de force. A twisting, twisted odyssey inside one woman's mind, her illusions, delusions, reality. It left my own mind reeling and my heart pounding. An absolutely gripping thriller." - Louise Penny, #1 New York Times bestselling author