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Siracusa by Delia Ephron

Thriller

Siracusa

by Delia Ephron

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Quick take

The fun...is trying to predict what deceit could be lurking as the vacationers sun, drink and quarrel on the eastern coast of Sicily.

Why I love it

"Travel rocks your perspective," says Finn, one of five characters vacationing together in this delicious new novel. That's putting it mildly: by the time Finn, his wife Taylor, their daughter Snow and their friends Lizzie and Michael are back home in the U.S. , their worlds will be turned upside down. This much is clear from the outset, so half the fun here is trying to predict what deceit could be lurking as the vacationers sun, drink and quarrel in Siracusa, a down-at-the-heels seaside town on the eastern coast of Sicily.

The novel is a stew of domestic intrigue. Will Lizzie, a New York magazine writer with dwindling assignments, rekindle her romance with Finn, the grizzled Maine restaurateur? Will Finn's wife Taylor, the frosty privileged beauty from NYC's Upper East Side, even notice? Could Michael, Lizzie's successful-author husband, be harboring secrets of his own? And what's the deal with nearly-silent 10-year-old Snow, who's constantly glued to her smothering mom and exudes an obscure air of menace?

Told rashomon-style, with chapters alternating among the four adults' viewpoints, the story moves at a satisfying clip. But it's more than suspense that makes the book such a treat. Delia Ephron, a playwright and screenwriter as well as a novelist, excels at spritely dialogue and has a keen eye for the pleasures and pitfalls of long marriages. Her observations on that score are hilarious. "I joke that sex is rhubarb," Taylor confides at one point. "Something I forget I like and then I taste it and remember, I like this, but then I forget all over again."

The violent denouement, when it comes, feels both shocking and utterly believable. Knocked off balance by their foreign surroundings, the characters fall prey to their darker impulses, and the consequences aren't pretty. You'll finish Siracusa with a delighted shiver, a hankering for gelato--and no desire to plan a double-date vacation anytime soon.

Member ratings (870)

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Thriller
View all
The Boyfriend
The Last One at the Wedding
Sleep Tight
First Lie Wins
House of Glass
Middle of the Night
Listen for the Lie
A Talent for Murder
Beautiful Ugly
Someone in the Attic
One Perfect Couple
Like Mother, Like Daughter
Kill for Me, Kill for You
Bad Tourists
Murder Road
Daughter of Mine
The Fury
The Other Mothers
When I’m Dead
The Soulmate
What Lies in the Woods
She Started It
The Only One Left
Dark Corners
Blacktop Wasteland
All the Dangerous Things
The Only Survivors
The Broken Girls
The Family Game
The Push
We Were Never Here
Things We Do in the Dark
The Golden Couple
The Stranger Upstairs
Gone Tonight
Too Good to Be True
The Last Word
You Are Not Alone
Rock Paper Scissors
Not a Happy Family
A Flicker in the Dark
Reckless Girls
The House Across the Lake
The Last Thing He Told Me
The Maidens
Everything We Didn't Say
The Paris Apartment
You're Invited
The Last Party
Dark Places
Pieces of Her
The Wife Between Us
Sharp Objects
None of This Is True
The Silent Patient
The Other Woman
Necessary People
The Family Upstairs
The Night Swim
Girl A
The Hunting Wives
Just Another Missing Person
First Born
The Lies I Tell
Breathless