The Request
by David Bell
When a man agrees to do a favor for a friend, he gets more than he bargained for as he becomes embroiled in a woman’s murder in this new thriller from the USA Today bestselling author of Layover.
Ryan Francis has it all—great job, wonderful wife, beautiful child—and he loves posting photos of his perfect life on social media. Until the night his friend Blake asks him to break into a woman’s home to retrieve incriminating items that implicate Blake in an affair. Ryan refuses to help, but when Blake threatens to reveal Ryan’s darkest secret—which could jeopardize everything in Ryan’s life—Ryan has no choice but to honor Blake’s request.
When he arrives at the woman's home, Ryan is shocked to find her dead—and just as shocked to realize he knows her. Then his phone chimes, revealing a Facebook friend request from the woman. With police sirens rapidly approaching, Ryan flees, wondering why his friend was setting him up for murder.
Determined to keep his life intact and to clear his name, Ryan must find the real murderer—but solving the crime may lead him closer to home than he ever could have imagined.
Momma Says: 4 stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐
You know that expression 'dumbest smart person I know?' That is exactly what kept going through my mind almost from the beginning of this book. Ryan is a great example of piling one mistake atop the next and getting deeper and deeper into a mess he can't get out of. Granted, he's not the only one making mistakes and doing foolish things. Of course, not everything is quite as it seems, and there are plenty of twists as Ryan acts and reacts, and I really, really wanted to reach into the book and give him a good shake. So, yes, it's safe to say that Ryan frustrated the daylights out of me, but he's not the only one. The Request had a few frustrating characters, although Ryan takes the prize. In a lot of cases, that would get on my nerves, and things do sometimes seem disjointed, but David Bell does bring it all together and it works for this story. As I mentioned, there are plenty of twists, some that were quite predictable and some that I didn't see coming at all. Predictable or not, Ryan and company kept me turning the pages all the way to the final twist because here's the thing: no matter how frustrating the characters are, they're intriguing characters. I wanted to see if and how Ryan's secret would come out. I wanted to know if his marriage would be okay. I wanted to see if Blake was up to more than what was on the surface. What it all comes down to is The Request is a well written, fast-paced thriller. It's loaded with unreliable characters, a protagonist who is all too dependent on social media, and the assurance that no matter how big our secrets, they will inevitably come out. I certainly enjoyed it and I'd recommend it to anyone who likes the genre.
❃❃ARC provided by NetGalley and Berkley
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