The Secret Keeper
by Kate Morton
Dorothy and Stephen Nicolson and their five children are enjoying a family celebration at their farm in rural England, summer 1961. Sixteen-year-old Laurel is savoring some alone time in a tree house and spots a man walking up the driveway toward the house. She witnesses her mother wield a cake knife and kill the stranger. A child, the only witness, her knowledge and understanding blurred, investigation is settled as an act of self-defense, and Laurel lives the next 50 years with this act of violence ever-present in the recesses of her mind.
In 2011 Dorothy is dying and the children gather to be with her in her final days. They reflect on their lives, and particularly their mother’s life, “…that young woman. She was a different person back then, with a whole other life we know nothing about. Do you ever wonder about her, about what she wanted, how she felt about things – Laurel sneaked a glance at her sister – the sorts of secrets she kept?” Laurel and her brother Gerry conspire to uncover the past. They are determined to find out why Dorothy Smithram Nicolson killed a man in 1961, and what came before.
Kate Morton does a masterful job of describing events as they unfold. She paints vivid pictures of London under siege in 1941. She used the narrative to uncover details and events then and in the present, moving the reader back and forth in time, to 1941 and into the present 50 years later, keeping the story tight and the mystery high. The plot twists are many and the ending is a stunner.
My first book of 2013. This looks to be a great reading year.
As I See It 