A sharp, sensitive, self-aware 72-year-old intimately narrates You Should Have Known, a beautifully drawn psychological literary thriller--and an accomplished first novel--by Rebecca A. Keller.
Francine “Frannie” Greene
is a widowed wife and grandmother. This retired nurse still grieves for her
husband and a teenaged granddaughter who was killed by a drunk driver years
before. The girl’s shattering death deeply affected--and reshaped the lives
of--everyone in the family.
After sustaining a few
falls, Frannie’s adult children convince her to move into a high-end assisted
living facility. Frannie is pleasantly surprised by her new living
arrangement—she sparks an instant friendship with a woman in the library,
Katherine, discovering they share affinities for books, pie and soap operas. Frannie,
however, later learns that Katherine’s husband, Nathaniel, is the
“reprehensible” judge who accepted a bribe and let off her granddaughter’s
killer from serving prison time. Angered Frannie secretly plots revenge on the
judge, but her actions go awry. When another resident dies suddenly and an
investigation plays out--implicating others in the sudden death--Frannie is
forced to face her own evils. Can she stand by and watch another injustice play
out?
The suspense of this complex thriller is heightened
by Frannie’s wise, introspective narrative voice. Her anger and resentments
contrasted against flaring bouts of conscience and self-questioning, make for
an immensely thought-provoking psychological portrait that explores themes of
what it is right and what is just.
You
Should Have Known by Rebecca A. Keller
Crooked Lane Books, $29.99 hardcover, 9781639102600, 320 pages
Publishing Date:
April 4, 2023
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NOTE: This review
is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (April 7, 2023), link HERE