LAST NIGHT

4 stars out of 5

Rose Denton is having a tough go of it. She and her 20-year husband are just going through the motions at this point - barely - and their 18-year-old daughter Olivia has evolved into a surly witch with a capital B. Rose's job as a high-end IT system saleswoman is getting harder by the day, and she's getting signals from her boss that improvement is in order stat (or else). And when she goes off on what should be a routine overnight business trip, she wakes up behind the wheel of her car in a remote field. If that weren't bad enough, there's blood on the windshield and hood; but Rose isn't seriously injured, and there's no body - human or animal - anywhere around.

Panicking, and endlessly speculating about what might have happened, Rose returns home, surreptitiously spit-shines the car and starts watching the news to see if anyone has turned up dead. In her spare time, she tries to avoid fighting with her husband and daughter, whose good-for-nothing boyfriend has gone missing. Olivia is nearly hysterical, and it doesn't help that his most recent activity was a fight with Rose.

Other strange things begin to happen, such as a possible break-in at Rose's home and personal items that mysteriously disappear and reappear. Along the way, readers learn that there's more to Rose than meets the eye; apparently, she's been keeping a deep, dark secret from her past that involves three childhood friends (one of whom died years ago and another who spent the past two decades in jail).

Weird things keep happening to Rose, to the point where she suspects everybody from her husband Dan to Olivia's boyfriend. But wait, could what happened years ago be connected to what's happening to her now? The conclusion, complete with a bit of a cliffhanger, is exciting, though I can't say it was particularly surprising. All in all, it's a good, solid effort, and I thank the publisher, via NetGalley, for the opportunity to read and review an advance copy.

Last Night by Kerry Wilkinson (Bookouture, March 2018); 364 pp.