Six years later, Stella’s family is still broken, and she can’t let go of her guilt. The only thing that keeps her going is helping other families find closure through A Killer Motive, her true crime podcast.
In a bid to find new sponsors and keep making episodes, Stella goes on a local radio show. But when she says on air that if she had just one clue, she’d find Max and bring whoever hurt him to justice, someone takes it as a challenge.
A mysterious invitation to play a game arrives, with the promise that if Stella wins, she’ll get information about what happened to Max. Stella thinks it’s a sick joke…until Max’s best friend vanishes. And she’s given new instructions: tell nobody or people will die.
Desperate and unable to trust anyone, Stella agrees. But beating a twisted, invisible enemy seems impossible when they make all the rules… (Pub Date: Sep 09 2025)
Stella's brother disappeared from a party she helped him get to in spite of her mother's orders. It's been years but she never stopped searching. And now she helps other families through a true crime podcast. That's when she receives an email with new information, but for her to get more, she'll have to pay a price—she needs to walk around with a burner phone with which the person can not only send her random commands but also listen to everything around her. She hasn't been the one kidnapped, but her loses control of her whole life. But each discovery the person leads her to, she realizes she didn't know the people in her life all that well.
Although Stella tries to keep tight control of her life, each step calculated, the way she falls into the hands of this mysterious person is suffocating. Usually when we have a story with each character hiding something, it's a hideous secret after another. In the case of this book, the discoveries aren't so abnormal. On the contrary, under other circumstances most of them would have been just the everyday secret everyone is entitled to have. It's the shadow of grief and guilt that magnifies it all. But the normalcy of the secrets by themselves brings this story close to reality. Like, omg, it could have been me if I had a missing brother.
The one thing I couldn't enjoy about this book were the chapter narrated by the culprit, who calls themselves Anwir. They added too little and to be honest, they gave me second-hand embarrassment instead of making me feel afraid of how crazy Anwir is. They were much scarier while talking with Stella.
I liked the conclusion a lot, though I hope this isn't an excuse for a series. The story itself was closed, hence why I'm praying this doesn't become a series. I'm more of a standalone fan. But back to the conclusion, it wasn't completely out of nowhere, but there was never a part in the book that it felt obvious. That explanation was only a possibility, and that's how I like the answers to mysteries to be. Moreover, Anwir's fate was very good; too bad I can't spoil it. Let's just say it got me laughing, though respectfully because they're pretty scary.
I highly recommend this book written by the master of planning. I have a feeling that those who prefer scary over mysterious will enjoy this thriller even the more. In any case, don't miss it!
Honest review based on an ARC provided by Netgalley. Many thanks to the publisher for this opportunity.
Rating: 4 out of 5.
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