APPLES NEVER FALL

by Liane Moriarty

For someone who alleges not to enjoy mysteries, I find myself recommending two more this month! Apples Never Fall is Liane Moriarty’s latest novel and perhaps her best. Moriarty tells the story of the Delaney family: Stan and Joy, a seemingly perfect couple who have been happily married for 50 years and their four adult children, all successfully launched into their own lives. Life is good for the Delaneys until Joy disappears one day, leaving no note. After two weeks, foul play is suspected and all signs point to Stan as the guilty party.

Moriarty possesses a real gift for creating and fleshing out well-rounded, believable characters who speak in realistic conversations. As she develops the story of the Delaneys, we learn that Stan and Joy were tennis players in their youth who might have “gone the distance” as professional players, if not for life’s unpredictability getting in the way. Instead, they started a tennis school and club in their suburban Australian town and raised four, strong-willed children, all of whom also played tennis. After Joy goes missing, Moriarty gives us a deeper, more nuanced look at each of the children and their relationships to their parents, to tennis and to each other. It is in the conversations between siblings when Moriarty really shines in terms of realistic dialogue. The author also writes true to life, gut-wrenching scenes where siblings side with their father or against their father and the effects that has on the family dynamic.

Also under suspicion for Joy’s disappearance is a character named Savannah, a bloodied stranger who appears at Joy and Stan’s door month’s before Joy’s disappearance, who ends up moving in with them and becomes like another daughter to Joy. Moriarty provides enough plot twists and turns that I was in the dark until the end. And her ending is deeply satisfying and moving. If you’re in the mood for a great “whodunnit” that involves a family you’ll come to love, read Apples Never Fall. (Liz)