Lizzie Ouellette grew up in a junkyard. Her father owned it. Her mother wasn’t around. It was just Lizzie and her father and the town of Copper Falls, filled with people who thought they were better. Lizzie was smart, but she didn’t have a lot of resources, so she never left the town. And then she was gone.
The junkyard was on fire. The smoke was rolling over the houses by the lake, so the police were going house to house to make sure no one was there. Most of the houses were second homes or rentals and were vacant that time of year. Nobody wants to go to a lake house in the fall. But that’s where the police officer found the scene, the blood, and the desiccated body of the young, skinny blonde woman. She was identified by a mole on her chest. Her husband Dwayne was nowhere to be found.
As the police look into the lake house, they find that Lizzie had rented it out through a website, so that renters can come and relax at the lake. The people of Copper Falls didn’t much like outsiders coming to town, but Lizzie didn’t let them stop her. They had looked down on her for her entire life. It’s not like a little more disdain will hurt her. And she made good money. Especially when she rented to social media influencer Adrienne Richards and her disgraced billionaire husband Ethan.
When Adrienne visited, Lizzie did what she could to protect her from the contempt of the town, keeping the refrigerator stocked and doing small errands. Over time, they would talk. Lizzie would do favors for her. She wanted to keep her most valuable client happy. Were they friends? Lizzie wouldn’t say that. She knew her place. She was trash, and Adrienne was far above all that.
But what the police don’t know about that night at the lake house is that Adrienne and her husband were there too.
What exactly happened that night at the lake house, and how did one woman end up dead, her husband disappearing into the night? There’s only one thing that the police know for sure, and that’s that no one will miss her.
Kat Rosenfield’s dark thriller No One Will Miss Her is a little bit satire and large part psychological thriller. It’s told in part by Lizzie herself, a dead woman, who has big secrets and is smarter than you expect. There are some scenes that are incredibly difficult to read, but there is an underlying snarkiness that I found entertaining.
I listened to the audio book for this, which is narrated by Cassandra Campbell, Sophie Amoss, and Chris Andrew Cuilla. I thought they all did a lovely job, but the voice of Lizzie was particularly spot on. She brought Lizzie to life (even though she’s dead), and she showed a depth of understanding to the character that gave her an edge and made you want to keep listening.
I enjoyed No One Will Miss Her. It is very dark, so there were moments I had to find another book to spend some time with. But still, I kept coming back. I had to know what happened to these women, and while I had some guesses along the way, it was so satisfying to see where things ended up. This one is not for sensitive readers, but if you love a good dark thriller with a dry satirical wit, then you might want to give this one a try.
Egalleys for No One Will Miss Her were provided by William Morrow, with many thanks, but I bought the audio book myself through Audible.
