End of 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 mansión to help draft his life story . . . while living alongside his beautiful second wife, Diana; his way-ward nephew, Freddy; and his protective daughter, Madeleine. Soon Nicky finds herself caught in an irresistible case of real-life “detective-fever.” “Yon and I might even solve an oíd 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 yon. ” As Nicky attempts to weave together the strands of Sebastian’s life, she becomes obsessed with discover-ing 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.