Just Between Us by Rebecca Drake

Four friends in suburban America. Some of them have secrets deeply hidden and despite meeting and talking about their lives, not everything is known to everyone.

Misreading a situation and acting upon it takes them into dangerous territory. Now they have a secret that is dangerous not just to themselves but to their careers, their professional lives are at stake and their family security has been jeopardized. Trying to cover up in the midst of an investigation is not easy. The women are easily startled, and the tricky thing is that they all have to come up with the same story. The detectives are suspicious but there is nothing to tie them into the crime. Nothing on the surface that is. Until a letter arrives to each of them, and blackmail begins.

How four amateurs decide to deal with their blackmailer, and to what extent they would go to safeguard their lives - even to kill and cover up again, is not beyond their scope. How it ends and dovetails very easily is also very plausible, very believable!

The characterization was spot on. Each woman different, looking at life differently and thinking they knew it all. Most of them were supercilious thinking they were a cut above the others, despite being friends. Most of them were judgemental. All common flaws in humankind but the need to survive beat all odds and this all had a common goal and interest in maintaining.

Story was quirky but held my interest throughout while it unravelled slowly. I always thought someone was going to blurt out the truth or get caught down the line but they managed to pull it off.

Sent to me by Netgalley for an unbiased review, courtesy of St. Martin's Press. This was a book I had wished for and I got lucky!