Book Review: "The Perfect Stranger" by Megan Miranda

"The Perfect Stranger" is Megan Miranda's latest book. I had previously loved "All The Missing Girls" and given it high marks for both mystery and character development so I had really high hopes for this new book. I'm so glad I put in to review it as it held up spectacularly to my expectations. "The Perfect Stranger" is already out in print so go pick it up at your local bookstore.

You know when you read a book and after you're done you find yourself wondering about what the characters are up to now? It's like they become real people to you and you want to phone them up and ask how they're doing, suggest you go for a cuppa and chat about their lives after such a harrowing experience. Are you still with the boyfriend? Did you finally settle down and find happiness in that little town you moved to? How's it going my friend? Ya, this is one of those books, I just cannot seem to let the characters go. That is such a good thing.

I crave these kind of books, the ones that get under your skin and set your world a little on a tilt. Once again, Megan Miranda has written wonderfully knowable characters that she has fleshed out by winding the details into the story. Leah Stevens used to be a journalist, now she's run from her life in Boston to a little town in Pennsylvania to teach high school. Leah will be living with her old friend Emmy Grey but their new start is marred when a woman who looks like Leah is assaulted and Emmy disappears. To protect her new life Leah will have to manipulate the truth and the past to stay above water. The local police are confused and Leah isn't helping by keeping details to herself. She's going to have to trust someone or she may not ever unravel the truth about where Emmy has gone.

This mystery works on so many levels. "The Perfect Stranger" sucks you into the labyrinth of Leah's life and the reader is given salient details in a slow, piecemeal fashion which stretches the tension. By the last quarter of the book the reader aches to understand where all the pieces of this puzzle fit together. The ending is so satisfying that I almost sighed in satisfaction, like one does when one finishes the last bite of an especially delicious dessert, good to the last word.

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