Love, Death, and Friends Forever, in FRIENDS & OTHER LIARS, by Kaela Coble

Highly engrossing, engaging, and unpredictable -- that's this winter's debut novel from Vermont author Kaela Coble, FRIENDS & OTHER LIARS. But is it a mystery? I'm not sure. It's certainly not a murder mystery; the only death in the book has already taken place before the action starts, and is clearly suicide. Yet some of the classic elements of a finely plotted mystery are very much present: red herrings, costly actions, mixed motives that need unearthing.

Moreover, the pacing is tight, the characters compelling, and ... I couldn't put it down.

Here's the setup: Ruby's visiting her home town (actually by Vermont standards, it's a small city) because of the death -- by suicide -- of one of her friends from the very tight group she survived high school with. But it's not a simple wake: The dead friend, Danny, quit the scene with a bundle of resentments against his friends, intense and painful and even cruel. And he's left his mom (who is hosting the wake) with a letter to read to the group:

You always talked about "the crew, the crew, the crew," like we were some untouchable entity. But when it comes to things that really matter, you guys barely knew each other. I think it's about time you did, if you're going to continue to pride yourselves on being friends since the womb. I know things about most of you that you didn't trust the crew to know.

In addition to this opening, Danny's left a letter for each of his four close friends, including Ruby and the man she's never quite coupled off with, Murphy. Each note reveals a secret that the person is deeply ashamed of. And he expect them to share these? Umm, the timing's not great. Plus there's a note he addressed to himself, which says simply, "I killed my stepfather."

It happens that Ruby already knows something about Danny's own "secret." But revealing that now, so many years after the fact, is going to complicate everything she's tried to put together in her life.

The book's chapters alternate time periods between the middle school and high school years and "now," and the critical question becomes, how is Danny, from the grave, orchestrating the threats of revelation among his former friends? And how will Ruby sustain the effects of her own secret being revealed?

This is a debut novel, but has few clues to that -- because the writing is smooth, clever, and expert. I'm curious to see what direction this author's next work will take.

PS:  Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.