Summary:
When website columnist Robin Diamond is contacted by true crime podcast producer Quentin Garrison, she assumes it’s a business matter. It’s not. Quentin’s podcast, Closure, focuses on a series of murders in the 1970s, committed by teen couple April Cooper and Gabriel LeRoy. It seems that Quentin has reason to believe Robin’s own mother may be intimately connected with the killings.
Robin thinks Quentin’s claim is absolutely absurd. But is it? The more she researches the Cooper/LeRoy murders herself, the more disturbed she becomes by what she finds. Living just a few blocks from her, Robin’s beloved parents are the one absolute she’s always been able to rely upon, especially now amid rising doubts about her husband and frequent threats from internet trolls. She knows her mother better than anyone—or so she believes. But all that changes when, in an apparent home invasion, Robin’s father is killed and her mother’s life hangs in the balance.
Told through the eyes of Robin, podcaster Quentin, and a series of letters written by fifteen-year-old April Cooper at the time of the killings, Never Look Back asks the question:
How well do we really know our parents, our partners—and ourselves?
My Rating:
Never Look Back Spoilers:
Gabriel, the murderer, was Peg’s son, the product of an affair. He was also the half-brother of Quentin the podcaster’s mother. Gabriel forced April to help him by threatening to kill her sister Jenny if she didn’t. April was Robin’s mom after all, and Robin’s dad had been April’s therapist and was doing research on her borderline personality disorder. He intended to kill April since he was done with his research.
Nikki was Jenny. She shot both of Robin’s parents to save April, ensuring April’s injuries weren’t fatal. April’s friend Elizabeht was the one found dead in the compound and assumed to be April. April took her name to escape with Jenny. When Robin found out the truth, Nikki/Jenny tried to kill her and April jumped in front of the bullet. Jenny killed herself after shooting Alice. Robin recorded the rest of the podcast with Quentin’s co-producer Summer after he died. Nikki had coerced and killed Quentin. George (the movie theater guy who identified Renee as April turned out to be Robin’s real dad.
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