Summary
In She Didn't See It Coming, Shari Lapena unravels a web of intrigue and lies surrounding the disappearance of Bryden Frost, a working mother who never arrived to pick up her young daughter from daycare. Suspicions and tensions quickly mount among Bryden’s husband, sister, neighbors, and best friend, who all have secrets to hide. Then, there’s the stranger who rear-ended Bryden’s car that morning. In this riveting domestic thriller, Lapena keeps readers gripped and guessing until the final shocking reveal.
Plot
She Didn't See It Coming revolves around the mysterious disappearance of 35-year-old Bryden Frost, a wife and mother in Albany, New York. On a typical work-from-home day, Bryden drops off her daughter, Clara, at daycare and returns to her condo. That evening, her husband, Sam, gets a call from the daycare that Bryden never arrived to pick up Clara. He rushes home to find Bryden’s car, purse, and phone in the apartment, but no sign of his wife. Panic sets in as family and friends realize that Bryden has gone missing. Leading the investigation, Detective Jayne Salter finds herself facing a classic locked-room mystery and a cast of suspects, each with their own motivations, fears, and demons.
Prominent among these is Sam, whose outward appearance of devoted husband and father hides his volatile character and a shocking betrayal. Other persons of interest include a neighbor previously accused of a violent crime, an alluring stranger who collided with Bryden’s car that morning, and Bryden’s best friend, Paige, who has her own dark secrets. To complicate matters, Bryden’s sister Lizzie becomes obsessed, launching a parallel investigation on social media. Everything becomes more intense when Bryden is no longer declared missing but murdered.
Through the interplay of these characters, all unreliable narrators, Shari Lapena masterfully explores the theme of deception—how it can erode the foundations of trust, compromise our moral compasses, and ultimately, lead to the unraveling of the lives we've so carefully constructed. When the killer is finally revealed, readers are left to grapple with the complexities of morality, the fragility of the human psyche, and the devastating impact of even the smallest of lies.
Themes
The corrosive power of deception
At the core of She Didn't See It Coming is an exploration of the ways in which deception can undermine the very fabric of our lives. Shari Lapena examines how the characters' web of lies, even those told with the best of intentions, can ultimately lead to the erosion of trust, the destruction of relationships, and the unraveling of carefully constructed identities. The novel’s tension is rooted in the contrast between the mundane—domestic routines, family dynamics, everyday frustrations—and the monstrous.
