Review: Best Friends Forever by Margot Hunt

Title: Best Friends Forever by Margot Hunt
Publisher: MIRA
Genre: Contemporary, Mystery, Suspense
Length: 336 pages
Book Rating: B+

Complimentary Review Copy Provided by Publisher Through NetGalley

Summary:

How well do you really know your best friend?

Kat Grant and Alice Campbell have a friendship forged in shared confidences and long lunches lubricated by expensive wine. Though they’re very different women—the artsy socialite and the struggling suburbanite—they’re each other’s rocks. But even rocks crumble under pressure. Like when Kat’s financier husband, Howard, plunges to his death from the second-floor balcony of their South Florida mansion.

Howard was a jerk, a drunk, a bully and, police say, a murder victim. The questions begin piling up. Like why Kat has suddenly gone dark: no calls, no texts and no chance her wealthy family will let Alice see her. Why investigators are looking so hard in Alice’s direction. Who stands to get hurt next. And who is the cool liar—the masterful manipulator behind it all.

Review:

Best Friends Forever by Margot Hunt is an intriguing mystery about two best friends and the suspicious death of one their husbands.

Alice Campbell’s normal day with her husband, Todd, and their two children Liam and Bridget, is quickly interrupted  when the police take Alice in for questioning about the death of her best friend Katherine “Kat” Grant’s husband, Howard.  Three days earlier, while Kat was out of town, Howard fell from their balcony to his death. Despite the fact he was extremely drunk at the time of the fall, a new witness casts doubt his death was accidental.  The police want to know very intimate details of Kat and Howard’s marriage that only her closet friend might know and Alice is the logical person to answer their probing questions.

Alice is a former math professor turned stay at home mom who met the very wealthy Kat three years earlier and despite their very different socioeconomic backgrounds, she considers Kat her best friend.  Alice is slightly uncomfortable with Kat’s wealth but their connection easily outweighs her misgivings.  Both women are slightly unhappy in their marriages but for very different reasons.  Alice and Todd are always one unexpected emergency away from financial ruin since they are living well beyond their means. Kat’s unhappiness stems from her Howard’s infidelities and she is somewhat trapped in her marriage due to the lack of a prenup.

As the police investigation gains traction, Alice has very good reason to wonder whether or not she knows Kat as well as she thought especially since her friend has not responded to any of Alice’s phone calls or texts.  She is further thrown off balance when Kat’s family hires a lawyer for her, and  Alice soon realizes, her new attorney might not be acting in her best interest. With one of the detectives on the case convinced she killed Howard, Alice begins to look back on her friendship with Kat with new eyes and quickly becomes convinced that she might not be able to trust anything her friend has told her.

Weaving seamlessly weaving back and forth in time, Best Friends Forever is a riveting psychological mystery. The glimpses of  Alice and Kat’s three year friendship are quite insightful and Margot Hunt effortlessly keeps the tension high with cliffhanger endings to the chapters.  A chilling portrait of manipulation begins to emerge but readers will be completely stunned by the jaw-dropping revelations at the novel’s conclusions. An absolutely brilliant debut that fans of the genre are sure to love.