Book Review: One Wrong Word by Hank Phillippi Ryan

Hank Phillippi Ryan is that uncommon one who holds the excellence of being extremely adorned in two separate professions, each of which draw on her eager storytelling sensibilities. As an investigative reporter, she has gained 37 Emmy Awards and myriad different accolades. As an creator, she has obtained 5 Agathas, 5 Anthonys, and the distinguished Mary Higgins Clark Award (amongst others) and has seen her identify grace the USA Immediately bestseller checklist. Ryan has written 9 books throughout two sequence (the Charlotte McNally mysteries and the Jane Ryland thrillers) and 6 standalone novels, the most recent of which is February’s One Unsuitable Phrase.

His identify is Ned Bannister, however they name him “The Parking Storage Killer.” Lately acquitted of by accident (and probably drunkenly) working down a skateboarder in a non-public parking construction, Bannister—a distinguished Boston businessman—might have prevailed in a courtroom of legislation however the courtroom of public opinion has rendered a unique verdict. Besieged by the press, deserted by their associates, and pilloried on social media (the place his acquittal has impressed the trending hashtag #Skated), the Bannisters—Ned, his spouse, Cordelia, and their two younger youngsters—haven’t gotten a second’s peace since rising victorious. Status in tatters, there’s just one place left to show: the Imaginative and prescient Group.

Disaster administration professional Arden Ward has constructed her model on resuscitating the pictures and careers of the downfallen, whose lives and livelihoods have been threatened by missteps and misspeaks. It’s maybe the last word irony, then, when her boss, Warren Carmichael, fires her for being the harmless sufferer of a rumor alleging an affair with a married, mega-rich firm shopper. To permit Arden to avoid wasting face, he provides to border her exit as voluntary in change for her taking one final shopper (and payout): Cordelia Bannister. With little alternative however to simply accept this proposition, Arden unexpectedly finds herself a participant in a lethal liaison wherein nothing is because it appears. 

In an authorial first, Ryan tells the story by means of three views—Arden’s, Cordelia’s, and failed prosecutor Monelle Churchwood’s. This method highlights every lady’s fall from grace and combat for redemption. Furthermore, the narrative—which maintains immediacy by staying within the present-day by means of the usage of remembrances and reminisces somewhat than flashbacks—calls into query each assumption and seeming reality of the Bannister case. When someone intimately acquainted with the trial is openly struck down within the highway, the police and the District Legal professional’s workplace are as soon as once more Ned Bannister for the crime. And whereas Arden desires to forestall a miscarriage of justice in any respect prices, she will’t assist questioning if she’s defending a responsible man. Discovering the reality may be the demise of her.

Hank Phillippi Ryan is not any stranger to capturing what’s within the collective zeitgeist. Right here, she attracts on the pervasive affect of cancel tradition to look at how lives may be destroyed by the whims of the general public (or possibly a extra non-public agenda). The story unfolds as if the creator is touring with out a highway map (fittingly, Ryan is a self-professed “pantser,” that means she writes by the seat of her pants) and, consequently, the ultimate vacation spot is extra of a promise than a predetermined final result. However the path there’s replete with twists, turns, and treachery, that means One Unsuitable Phrase hits a whole lot of the precise touchstones alongside the way in which.

Study Extra Or Order A Copy