This has clearly been inspired by and based on a real-life crime including a child (!), so we are not going to even mention that and basically create a theory about that and profit off of it and not even disclose it. Is this history repeating itself again? And is the "author" getting away with it again? Doesn't sit right with me. Also, when Billy kills Krissy, he says, “You shouldn’t have lied to me.” Uh… like 15 years too late, right? I mean, if he wanted to call her out for lying, wouldn’t he have done that a long time before? Why did he kill her anyway? I guess we’re supposed to assume it’s because he found the note in her purse. But then, wouldn’t he have said, “So, you know what happened, huh? I can’t have you telling anyone…” or something like that? I know this was to conceal who the killer was, but it was really ill-fitting. The whole suicide story was actually pretty unconvincing. The police never looked into it further? They never tested for gunshot residue? They didn’t find it suspicious that half of Krissy’s letter was torn off or that she lying by the door with her purse out, as if she was getting ready to leave? The had noticed a tiny bit of blood on Jase’s pajamas all those years before; could they not find any blood on Billy’s clothes? I find it hard to believe that they wouldn’t have looked into this very deeply, given the family’s history. But maybe we’re supposed to just accept that the police were so convinced of Jace or Krissy’s guilt that they accepted suicide without investigating at all. Again, that seems ridiculous. I liked Margot and Krissy and thought all of the characters were believable. While flawed, I could empathize which most of them. The mystery is sound, causing me to change my mind many times as to who the culprit might be. The whole story made me feel sad about all the things that could have been and all the small things that could have gone differently to avoid how it all turned out- I like a book that can leave me with that much emotion at the end. Krissy then decides to tell Dave that he is the twins’ father. After that meeting, she writes Jase a letter saying, “I learned something about your father. He isn’t who you think he is.”

What I thought was interesting was that the family member vs outside intruder debate in the (still unsolved) JBR case were similar to plot elements in the book. Both January’s and JBR’s parents gave somewhat awkward media interviews that made the public suspect they were not being forthcoming about everything they knew. Billy admits to Margot that he killed Krissy after he THINKS she has figured out he’s the one who killed January.Eight year-old April was out playing with a friend and decided to home and get her umbrella. Then she vanished. Dave/Luke had another opportunity to be like “hey, wtf” when Krissy died in 2009 on the very day Dave/Luke and Krissy spoke about the twins’ parentage. AGAIN Dave/Luke didn’t say anything to the police. Dave/Luke, what is up with that? According to Margot, his dementia is recent, so he can’t blame that.

Like I said before, there really aren't any surprises, and if there are, there's not enough suspenseful tension built up to make the reader care about the identity of the villain(s). But the police, Natalie’s family, the townspeople --- they all seem to be hiding something. And the deeper Margot digs into Natalie’s disappearance, the more resistance she encounters and the colder January’s case feels. Could January’s killer still be out there? Is it the same person who took Natalie? And what will it cost to finally discover what truly happened that night 20 years ago? Personally, I felt all the twists and turns were organic and made sense within this story. They feel earned and representative of how complicated real crime investigations are. The truth is rarely as simple as we would like it to be and All Good People Here reflects this beautifully. Small Town Secrets After discovering the evidence in Elliott Wallace’s storage unit, Margot goes to tell Billy that she’s solved January’s case.

Become a Member

The following version of this book was used to create this study guide: Flowers, Ashley. All Good People Here. Bantam Books. 2022. Kindle. But the police, the family, the townspeople—they all seem to be hiding something. And the deeper Margot digs into Natalie’s disappearance, the more resistance she encounters, and the colder January’s case feels. Could the killer still be out there? Could it be the same person who kidnapped Natalie? And what will it cost to finally discover what truly happened that night? My review of All Good People Here Jan and I were totally amazed that a person who seems to specialize in true crime could write such claptrap! Our jaws dropped out of disappointment and precious reading time wasted. The hallmark of a good thriller for me is this: how much can the author give away to allow us to guess along and still be surprised, yet make it all line up? The dual timeline definitely helps here as we are always thinking about January’s case from two perspectives, gathering different insights from both the past and present. Ultimately, this made for a really interesting reading experience.