November 2001: Chloe Harlow wakes up late, with hazy memories of the party the night before but no recollection of how she got back to her Brooklyn apartment. Ever since the terrifying and catastrophic terrorist attack, it seems she has been on a collision course with destruction.
When she finally arrives at the exclusive Upper East Side art gallery where she works, she is immediately called into her boss’s office. A pair of NYPD detectives greet her, also very curious to know how her evening ended…because the host of the party, a rising painter and the gallery’s newest artist, is dead.
Navigating both the sophisticated high-stakes art world and her personal life in burgeoning Williamsburg, Chloe struggles to piece together a complete picture of that lost night. As she digs deeper, inconsistencies emerge between what she remembers and what people tell her actually happened, and more questions are raised. Everything begins to feel like a conspiracy and maybe it is. Because Chloe is the only one who glimpses the secrets the murdered artist left behind, and the closer she gets to the truth…the more deadly it becomes.
If you’re of a certain age like me, you remember exactly where you were on 9/11/01 and all the feelings and emotions of that day and time like it was both yesterday and another lifetime ago. Like Chloe, the protagonist of The Gallery Assistant, I was then a twenty something young woman trying to find my way in the world but I was safely ensconced in my upstate college bubble. Chloe is dealing with surviving the attacks when her life is upended again by the murder of an artists set to debut works at the galley she’s working at. While she’s a somewhat “unreliable” narrator you can’t help but root for her to heal and clear her name. This novel’s strengths are its atmospheric descriptions of NYC and the US in the fall/winter of 2001 and it adds an extra layer of paranoia to the mystery of whodunnit and why. Belli also does a great job of illustrating the art world and the high stakes and passion that flows throughout. This was one mystery thriller that kept me guessing until the final chapters!
Thank you to the publisher, Atria books @atriabooks via @netgalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
You can find The Gallery Assistant at your local bookstore, library or online shop.
No comments:
Post a Comment