End of Story
by A.J. Finn
Nicky Hunter, a New York teacher of writing and a fan of classic mystery fiction, arrives at the elegant San Francisco mansion of Sebastian Trapp, a famous mystery writer who has sold millions of books worldwide. Five years ago Nicky wrote him to him, identifying an error in one of his books. That led to an exchange of correspondence, and in his latest letter, Sebastian issued a surprising invitation. He informed her that he is dying and has about three months left to live. He asked her to come be his personal biographer, writing a story of his life for the family, and she agreed.
Sebastian has a huge mystery in his own life. Twenty years ago, his wife Hope and fourteen-year-old son Cole vanished; they haven’t been seen since. Many people believe they’re dead, and in fact suspect that Sebastian killed them, but police have no evidence of that or of any other solution.
Nicky is not sure what she thinks. She’s assured her friends that staying in his house won’t put her at risk, and she has hopes that perhaps she can solve the mystery and discover what happened to his family so long ago.
Sebastian himself has told her, “The past isn’t gone; it’s just waiting.”
His daughter, Madeleine, has never gotten over the loss of her mother and brother. She dropped out of law school and has lived with her father ever since, in the house where she grew up. Meanwhile, five years ago Sebastian remarried. His second wife, Diana, was Hope’s young assistant at the time of the disappearance, but after the tragedy she returned to England, where she became a teacher and married. Then she and her husband were in a car accident that killed him and their unborn child. Diana then reconnected with Sebastian; he invited her to come back to San Francisco, and their bonding over shared grief led to marriage.
Nicky interviews Sebastian and begins writing up the memories he shares. She also talks to Madeleine and Diana, as well as Sebastian’s widowed sister-in-law and nephew Freddy, along with other acquaintances; all have perspectives to provide, fleshing out her understanding.
Then Diana is found, dead, in the koi pond. Now there’s a new mystery. Was this an accident, suicide, or murder? The same police detective who investigated the original disappearance is called in.
The story is told in a rather convoluted way, and some reviewers complain that it’s hard to follow. The author describes the book as a “layered psychological thriller.” There are multiple suspects and various leads that turn out to be red herrings. Readers’ patience is rewarded by the end, however: all the questions finally get resolved, and there are a couple of big twists that put a surprising spin on the whole story.
A.J. Finn is the pseudonym of Dan Mallory, a book editor turned novelist. His first novel, The Woman in the Window, was acquired at auction by the publisher William Morrow (an imprint of Harper Collins) in a two-book deal reportedly valued at $2 Million. Published in 2018, the book was immediately a #1 bestseller on the NY Times list. It was published in more than forty languages and adapted for the screen as a 2021 film starring Amy Adams, Gary Oldman, and Julianne Moore.
End of Story is the second book completing that contract. Initially expected in 2020, it was published in 2024.
Details about Mallory’s life are a bit hard to pin down. A profile published in the New Yorker in 2019 describes him as having exaggerated, or even invented, various stories about himself, but presents the following details as fact. (The profile, really an exposé, reads much like a thriller itself.)
Mallory was born in 1979, living on Long Island with his family (parents, two sisters and a younger brother). Later they moved to Virginia and then to Charlotte, N.C. but spent summers in Amagansett on Long Island, where his parents still live.
He graduated from Duke University in 2001, then spent a number of years moving back and forth between the UK and US. He completed a master’s degree at Oxford in 2004, then worked as an editor in New York, then enrolled at Oxford again for a doctoral program which he didn’t complete, instead taking a job in 2009 as an editor for Little, Brown. He left there in 2012, returning to New York, where he was hired at William Morrow as an executive editor. He was still working there when Woman in the Window was published. Since then, he toured internationally as an author and worked on his second novel. He lives in New York City.
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