Review: Long Bright River (by Liz Moore)

My Rating: 4.5 stars

I chose Liz Moore's Long Bright River as my very first read of 2020 and I am happy to say that it was an excellent choice!  This story, about two sisters who were extremely close during their childhood but ended up on grossly divergent paths, reads like a thriller at first, but as the events in the story unfold and the characters evolve, it becomes apparent that this is no ordinary suspense novel.  In fact, I would actually classify this more as literary fiction than suspense / thriller, as the "disappearance" of one of the sisters serves as a catalyst with which the author does a deep dive into various societal issues — most specifically, opioid addiction and it's impact on individuals as well as their families.  

In the Philadelphia neighborhood of Kensington, where every street corner bears the scars of a town in the throes of an opioid epidemic, Mickey Fitzpatrick patrols the streets of the 24th district on her regular police beat.  On her patrols, sometimes she crosses paths with her sister Kacey, who has been gripped in the vise of opioid addiction since her teenage years and now permanently lives on the streets.  The two of them are no longer on speaking terms, yet the underlying concern and worry that the once inseparable siblings have for each other, still occasionally rises to the surface. When a string of murders takes place in the district, with each victim seeming to fit Kacey's profile — a young woman living on the streets and engaged in prostitution in order to support her drug addiction — Mickey is immediately alarmed when she discovers that her sister has suddenly (and coincidentally) disappeared.   From that moment, Mickey's singular goal becomes finding the person responsible for the murders — and possibly her sister's disappearance — a goal bordering on obsession that threatens to upend the life that Mickey worked so hard to build.

This is a beautifully written story, atmospheric and realistically rendered, with flawed characters whose actions and choices put them in morally ambiguous territory. Ultimately, in addition to being a story about the dangers of addiction, it is also about the bonds of family and ties between sisters that are hard to break even through betrayal and heartbreak.

At times heart wrenching, yet ultimately hopeful, this is a timely novel that I feel everyone needs to read.  Though this book clocked in at nearly 500 pages, don't be put off by the length, as this was fast-paced enough and the story engaging enough that the time reading this actually flies by.   When planning your reading at the start of this new year, definitely add this "must-read" novel to your list!

Received ARC from Riverhead Books via Edelweiss.