Say No More by Hank Phillippi Ryan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
It’s kind of a trope – people say the latest book an author wrote is “the best ever.”
In Hank Phillip Ryan’s case it happens to be true.
Say No More starts with a seemingly innocent event. Reporter Jane Ryland witnesses a hit-and-run. Not all that dramatic…or is it?
At the same time, Detective Jake Brogan responds to a dead woman in a pool. Accident…or something more sinister?
You meet a scheming college administrator, a woman who is definitely keeping secrets, and a young college girl with a heart-breaking past. Each story thread comes in seamlessly. It’s like watching a tapestry being woven. The threads, which don’t look like they’ll go together at all, start to create the picture of the book. You can mostly see it, but the full picture is incomplete. It might work – but how?
But Ryan is a master tapestry-weaver. And by the time you hit that final chapter, the tapestry is fuller and richer than you could have believed.
I’m not someone who’s often “sold” a book because of blurbs, but I have to agree with one from Lee Child (I think it was him – I don’t have the book in front of me): I knew Ryan was good, but I didn’t know she was this good.
This clearly isn’t “the end” for Jane and Jake – there’s still a lot of questions to be answered by that final page. But man, I’ll be eagerly anticipating the next installment, and wondering how Ryan is going to top Say No More.
Ah, another title for my Christmas list. Thanks.
You will love it. Enjoy!