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When I’m Dead by Hannah Morrissey

Thriller

When I’m Dead

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This is an early release that's only available to our members—the rest of the world has to wait to read it.

by Hannah Morrissey

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Quick take

This twist-filled and visceral chiller will have you wondering how well we can ever truly know those we hold dearest.

Good to know

  • Illustrated icon, Psychological

    Psychological

  • Illustrated icon, Multiple_Viewpoints

    Multiple viewpoints

  • Illustrated icon, Puzzle

    Puzzle

  • Illustrated icon, Whodunit

    Whodunit

Synopsis

On a bone-chilling October night, Medical Examiner Rowan Winthorp investigates the death of her daughter’s best friend. Hours later, the tragedy hits even closer to home when she makes a devastating discovery—her daughter, Chloe, is gone. But, not without a trace.

A morbid mosaic of clues forces Rowan and her husband to question how deeply they really knew their daughter. As they work closely to peel back the layers of this case, they begin to unearth disturbing details about Chloe and her secret transgressions . . . details that threaten to tear them apart.

Amidst the noise of navigating her newfound grief and reconciling the sins of her past, an undeniable fact rings true for Rowan: karma has finally come to collect.

Free sample

Get an early look from the first pages of When I’m Dead.

When I’m Dead

1

Rowan

You’ll love me more when I’m dead.

The memory of her daughter’s words makes the hair on the back of her neck stand up. Or perhaps it’s just Black Harbor and the way she can’t help but feel chilled to the bone whenever she finds herself skulking in its shadows. Eighteen years in this purgatory; Rowan would have thought she’d be used to it by now.

It could be that there are some things you never get used to: babies in dumpsters, brains smeared on sidewalks, junkies lying on the lawn, their last needle offering a stiff salute from their basilic vein.

Dead girls in gullies.

Shards of white glint on the river rocks, little snowflake fractals. But it’s only mid-October in Wisconsin, which means it’s too early for anything but hoarfrost. The broken triangles are teeth, knocked out of the skull of her daughter’s best friend.

Madison Caldwell lives just around the bend, a handful of houses down.

Lived.

Rowan shines her flashlight on the corpse. It stares up at a starless sky, head nesting on tendrils of blond hair. The skin is snowy and soft; the eyes float in pools of plum-colored bruises. Crouching low, Rowan flutters the eyelashes and receives no response. She presses two fingers to the victim’s neck, then, and feels nothing. After she lifts them, her prints stay there in white, blanching the skin. Next to them is a red mark. Rowan squints and leans closer. A hickey?

She turns the victim’s head and examines the other side. A second mark peeks from beneath the hood. With her work phone, she snaps a picture of each injury, and hears the sound of leaves shuffling as an evidence technician crouches to place a yellow placard by what appears to be a set of house keys. No chance they belong to the killer. They wouldn’t get that lucky.

The scene is crawling with law enforcement. There are ten officers with flashlights and black memo pads, including the four members of the Violent Crime Task Force. At least two officers must have gone to notify the parents. It’s a responsibility usually reserved for a sergeant or lieutenant, but they’re too shorthanded to be concerned about formalities. A fifteen-year-old girl is dead. Someone has to tell her parents.

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Why I love it

When I’m Dead opens with a macabre crime: a girl has been murdered, her broken teeth scattered across the ground. Soon it’s discovered that her best friend, Chloe Winthorp, is missing. But Chloe’s disappearance is not the only thing that terrifies her parents, both veteran investigators—because it’s not clear whether Chloe is a victim or the perpetrator.

As the story shifts between those who are closest to Chloe, we peel back the intricate layers of her life. Chloe’s parents are forced to question just how well they actually know their daughter, and what secrets she was keeping from them. Then another body surfaces and the investigation takes on new urgency.

The dark heart of this novel lies in its exploration of a young woman’s private world, and of a family that began to fracture long before she vanished. Hannah Morrissey deftly balances emotional depth with a twisting mystery and ever rising tension that had me absolutely in its grip.

And of course, all of this transpires in the bleak and starkly drawn town of Black Harbor, a place that exudes a sense of peril all on its own. With its late October setting, complete with pumpkin carving and a visit to a haunted house, I found it the perfect book to curl up with as the days get shorter and darkness creeps in. If your fall vibe includes graveyards and scary stories, you won’t want to miss this one.

Member ratings (19,203)

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View all
The Boyfriend
The Last One at the Wedding
Sleep Tight
First Lie Wins
House of Glass
Middle of the Night
Listen for the Lie
A Talent for Murder
Someone in the Attic
One Perfect Couple
Like Mother, Like Daughter
Darling Girls
Kill for Me, Kill for You
Bad Tourists
Murder Road
Daughter of Mine
The Fury
Only if You’re Lucky
The Other Mothers
When I’m Dead
The Soulmate
What Lies in the Woods
She Started It
The Only One Left
Dark Corners
Blacktop Wasteland
All the Dangerous Things
The Only Survivors
The Broken Girls
The Family Game
The Push
We Were Never Here
Things We Do in the Dark
The Golden Couple
The Collective
The Stranger Upstairs
Gone Tonight
Too Good to Be True
The Last Word
You Are Not Alone
Rock Paper Scissors
Not a Happy Family
A Flicker in the Dark
The Last Flight
Reckless Girls
The House Across the Lake
The Wife Upstairs
The Last Thing He Told Me
The Maidens
Everything We Didn't Say
Invisible Girl
The Paris Apartment
You're Invited
The Last Party
Dark Places
Pieces of Her
The Wife Between Us
Sharp Objects
None of This Is True
The Silent Patient
The Winter Sister
The Other Woman
Necessary People
The Family Upstairs
The Night Swim
Girl A
The Hunting Wives
Just Another Missing Person
First Born
The Lies I Tell
Breathless