What I Loved

The aspect I loved the most about The Necklace by Matt Witten is that the story came from bits and pieces of a few different actual cases and a few real people. This added to the authentic feel of the novel. I often wondered if I was reading a fictionalized story about a real case - that’s how authentic the plot and characterization feel.

The intensity of the main character’s emotions drives this story and keeps the pages flipping more and more quickly. Susan has been through much more than any person should have to endure, and even though she has shown remarkable resiliency, it has not been an easy path. As she tells the reader her story, you can’t help but be swept into it and feel all that she feels.

The third-person focused narration is just as intense as any first-person POV I have ever read. But, in this perspective, you know that the narrator is reliable and has a broad perspective even if the story is told, as it is here, in a strictly focused manner. The dual timelines also work efficiently as the reader wants to know what came before.

I did guess the ending correctly from early on, but that in no way impacted my enjoyment of the story at all. I’ve been on a roll of figuring out the endings lately, so I’m sure it’s not a reflection of how suspenseful and full of red herrings this story is. I loved the way the truth is uncovered! What an ending!

Characters
Susan, the main character, is very well developed with all her scabs and scars on display. Susan Lentigo is a broken woman who has more strength than even she realizes. Having been to hell and back, she is ready to face her demons one final time so that she can move on with her life and become a person who lives and loves once again.

Kyra is my favorite character. A teenager who reluctantly helps Susan, she is my hero. Interestingly enough, the author said this is the character most like him. She is plucky and has a firm grasp of right and wrong. Her fearlessness and sass hide her deep-seated pain, and she is very well developed, especially for a minor character.

What I Wish
There are only some minor plot points that irritated me, but overall I can’t imagine how this story could have been any better.

To Read or Not to Read

If you love the intensity and feeling of a true crime story, The Necklace is the book you won’t want to miss!

I stayed up way too late reading this because I had to know what happened. And I was not disappointed. I really enjoyed this book from start to finish. Honestly, I wondered if Susan was losing it. She makes some risky choices as she searched for the truth and what happened to her daughter. Some of the scenes had me on the edge of my seat.

Susan is making her way from New York to North Dakota. Twenty years earlier her daughter was murdered and she's on her way to witness the killer's execution.

As she travels, she discovers new evidence. Leaving her unsure if the man behind bars is really responsible. And the man she suspects has a young daughter. She needs to figure out the truth before an innocent is condemned and another child is killed.

When the FBI refuses to look into her case, she enlists the help of a teenage girl and the FBI agent who originally worked her daughter's case.

Thanks so much to the publisher, the author, and NetGalley for this ARC to review.

American television writer, Matt Witten has four previously published books and now a standalone thriller titled The Necklace. Twenty years after her daughter’s murder, Susan Lentigo is a struggling waitress in a small town. She decides to take a road trip, from her home in Upstate New York, all the way to North Dakota, to witness the execution of her daughter’s self-confessed killer. With little money and not much time, she finds new evidence and questions whether he is in fact innocent? The narrative moves between events twenty years ago and present day, as Susan ponders if the real killer is out there. A road trip crime story with likeable characters, satisfactory tension and a three-star read rating. With thanks to Oceanview Publishing and the author for an uncorrected proof copy for review purposes.

I loved watching House MD so when I found out that Matt Witten, one of the producers and screenwriters, had made the jump from screen to page I just had to read his new thriller, The Necklace.

The novel is written in a dual timeline following the disappearance of Amy Lentigo and then twenty years later when her killer is set to be executed by lethal injection. My heart was breaking for Amy's mother Susan as she lives with the loss of Amy every single day. Susan's marriage was another casualty of Amy's murder and Susan rather intriguingly blames her mother for what happened to Amy.

Susan may be penniless but she has a lot of friends and they hold a fundraiser to send her to North Dakota to witness the execution. On several bus journeys that really portray the vast size of America, Susan encounters the full spectrum of humanity and a twist of fate sees her questioning whether the man condemned to die is really guilty of Amy's murder.

As a Brit, it was really interesting to read about an execution. There seemed to be a buzz in the whole town and it was almost like a show: 'Roll up, roll up, see a man die by lethal injection!' I can understand that it must bring closure for the victims of crime but I don't think I could sit and watch it happen. Maybe I would think differently if I was in Susan's place.

The plot is excellent, it's really gripping and intriguing and I was hooked throughout. The writing is very dialogue focussed and you can sometimes tell that it has been written by a screenwriter as it didn't evoke any mental images of the characters or scenes. The fantastic plot kept me rapidly turning pages though and I can totally see why it has already been optioned for film.

Fast-paced, gripping and intriguing, The Necklace is a great read and I can't wait to see it on the big screen.

I chose to read a digital ARC via NetGalley and this is my honest and unbiased opinion.

Danny and Susan Lentigo had been together since high school. After several miscarriages they were finally blessed with a daughter. Amy was their whole world, but when she disappeared and her body was later discovered their world fell apart. Susan’s mom had been asked to pick Amy up after school but she never showed up. Now Amy is gone. After a frantic search, her body was discovered in the woods in the next state, bringing in the FBI. Agent Robert Pappas vows to catch her killer and a suspect is soon convicted and sentenced to death.

Twenty years later, Curtis Jansen is scheduled for execution in North Dakota. Susan is a waitress in New York and is barely getting by. The residents in her town remember Amy’s death and organize a fundraiser so that she can attend. On the first day of her trip her car dies and repairs would be too expensive. Buses would get her there on time, but after buying her tickets the remainder of her money is stolen. Days before Amy was killed she and Susan had bought decorative beads and made a necklace. Amy never took it off, but it was never found at the scene of the crime. Now a chance encounter on her trip triggers thoughts and memories tied to the necklace that bring Jansen’s guilt into question. She is helped by Kyra, a teenager who had suffered abuse and now pushes Susan to find the proof, help Jansen and see that Amy’s actual killer is brought to justice.

Matt Witten’s story alternates between Susan’s current journey and the events that took place twenty years earlier. Susan still lives in the same house and has not touched Amy’s room since her death. Her tale is heartbreaking and she hopes that witnessing the execution of Amy’s killer will finally bring closure. Her mother now lives with her but she has never really forgiven her for not picking Amy up after school and blames her for Amy’s death.. Twenty years ago she was mired in grief but as she begins to doubt Jansen’s guilt she looks back at events that she ignored at the time but now sees more clearly. She becomes stronger and more determined as she approaches North Dakota. This is an emotionally charged story that at times brought me to tears. The loss of a child is never easy to face, but Witten takes you through all of the hopes, fears and finally utter devastation faced by his characters. It was difficult to put this book down until the last page and I thank NetGalley and Oceanview Publishing for providing this book for my review.

I’ve been on a roll lately with my reading but of course having good books to read really helps! Started this book last nite reading into the early am hours!
I received this book in advance of publication from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review!
From page one I was hooked into this story revolving around the murder of a young girl alternating from the crime to present day twenty years later when the convicted killer is to be executed in North Dakota. As mom of the girl that was murdered travels to the execution(something she had been waiting on for twenty years) she has second thoughts and recollections which starts her mind reeling with memories of the necklace her daughter had made, that was never found along with other events that really have her thinking that the man in prison sentenced to death is not the guy who killed her daughter.
This story had a lot of twists and turns and when I think I have the story figured out, I was wrong!
Matt Witten did a great job of keeping the readers engrossed, I’ll definitely be looking for more from this author!

The Necklace is a riveting and propulsive standalone thriller set in Lake Luzerne, Warren County, New York. Alternating between the past and the present, the novel follows protagonist Susan Lentigo, a waitress from Glens Falls, N.Y., whose 7-year-old daughter, Amy, was brutally raped and strangled to death in a murder that was seemingly committed by a sexual predator twenty years ago. Curt Jansen, during a police interrogation, had confessed to killing Amy; he was a vagrant engaged in a transient way of life and had prior convictions on his criminal record, however, a short time before his trial could begin he had recanted his statement. Nevertheless, when it reached trial he was convicted and sentenced to death. He has been sitting on death row awaiting execution for two decades and now Susan finally has a date to see the monster she believes murdered her innocent young daughter in cold blood be sent straight to hell via lethal injection. Still as devastated as she was when it initially happened, Susan, with help from the community, scrapes together the funds to travel from Lake Luzerne to North Dakota to view the killer’s execution.

Along the harrowing journey, though, she discovers evidence that makes her doubt that the convicted man was the murderer. He had claimed he could see Amy’s necklace from where he was standing, but it simply wasn't possible making Susan question his guilt and whether the wrong man is about to be executed. Worse yet, she suspects that the killer is still out there. This is a compelling and enthralling thriller about a desperate search for the truth and one mother’s attempts to ensure the correct person is to be punished for her daughter’s death. It's a fast-paced, heart-pounding crusade for justice, and Susan must fight tooth and nail to make the FBI receptive to her evidence. It's a race against the clock with the possibility of another innocent life at stake and the excitement, danger, drama and thrills just keep coming. It's full of adeptly plotted twists and turns that pull you one way and then another, so you never can completely envisage how the story is likely to end. This affecting thriller was inspired by a case Witten read about in a newspaper article. A breathless, punchy read, this is a tense and traumatic tale I highly recommend.

The Necklace by Matt Witten

This is a compelling thriller inspired by a true story. It is told in alternating timelines—Then (20 years ago) and Present.

Present: The story is set in a small New York state town in the Adirondacks where Susan, a fifty-something waitress struggling to make ends meet, still grieves the violent death of her daughter Amy 20 years before. The town holds a fundraiser to cover Susan’s expenses for a cross country trip to witness the execution of Amy’s killer in North Dakota.
Then: The cast of characters is introduced and Amy’s murder is described. The interrogation and trial of the accused killer sets the stage for the action and propulsive forward movement of the story in present day.

I do not want to hint at the plot and outcome. Susan is a sympathetic character, easy to like and root for as she travels to the execution in North Dakota. It was easy for me, as a mother, to identify with Susan’s feeling of anger, sadness, confusion, disbelief and desire to find closure. The strong supporting cast of characters is well-drawn also. As the story picks up momentum, the action is riveting and compelling to its conclusion. While some of Susan’s adventures seemed a bit far-fetched, the down-to-earth, character-driven writing and fast pace of the story kept me fully immersed to the end. While other reviews have hinted at or revealed some of the improbabilities of the plot and its twists, I think the strength of this book is the strong female protagonist Susan, who we root for as she stumbles her way through the many challenges of her messy life, but keeps her belief in justice foremost.
A well told tale indeed!

Wow what a book! When I started reading The Necklace I knew it was going to be a good one as it gripped me immediately. I raced through the story with all its twists and turns. I highly recommend it.

Thank you to NetGalley and Oceanview Publishing for my ARC.

Twenty years ago, Susan Lentigo's 7 year old daughter, Amy, was raped and murdered. The FBI's prime suspect confessed, then recanted, but a jury found him guilty and he was sentenced to death. Twenty years later, he has run out of appeals and is scheduled for execution. Susan hits the road for North Dakota to witness the event, but along the way she comes across some evidence (the necklace of the title) that makes her question whether the right man was convicted after all. In a race against the clock, Susan tries to find someone to help her discover the truth. Overall, a good plot that kept me uncertain about the ultimate outcome, but I was not a big fan of the main character and found many of her choices annoying and situations unbelievable (I couldn't decide between 3 or 4 stars, finally decided to "round up").

Adult | Mystery
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It’s been 20 years since seven-year-old Amy Lentigo was raped and murdered, and the man who confessed to her killing is facing execution. Amy’s bitter, grieving mother Susan, now 55, is nearly penniless, but is determined to be there to witness the Monster’s death. With the help of family and her community, she raises the cash she needs to drive her beater Dodge Dart from New York to North Dakota. But along the way, she learns something that raises doubts in her mind – is Curt Jansen the killer? Sure, he recanted his confession, but don’t all cons claim innocence on Death Row? The titular necklace is the one she and Amy made together just before the abduction; with its distinctive unicorn, duck, and dolphin beads, it was never found on Amy, though its imprint was visible on her bruised neck. When it turns up, everything Susan knows to be true is turned upside down. Susan, already a disturbed and angry woman, finds herself fighting to be heard. The last thing she wants to do is see the wrong person killed — in her view, that would make her a killer as much as the man who took her daughter’s life. This is a tense and riveting thriller, as Susan struggles with a series of obstacles from breakdowns to theft as she tries to reconcile contradicting bits of information about the day her daughter was taken, and the events that led to it. Witten alternates between present day and flashbacks to slowly reveal what happened 20 years ago, and there are hints to the killer’s identity that alert readers will spot early. The writing is good, though some of the plot twists are a bit predictable. Think Harlen Coben, rather than Ruth Ware. If you like this genre, I think you’ll find this a compelling read, as it held my interest to the very last pages. My thanks to Oceanview Publishing for the advance reading copy provided through NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. And kudos for a creepy and haunting cover!
More discussion and reviews of this novel: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56459963

The Necklace by Matt Witten has been a very difficult book to review. There were a lot of strong points and many, many weak points, and my conclusion on which were the leading elements changed hour by hour and day by day after finishing it.

If, as I've been reliably told, a mystery is a story where the crime occurs at the beginning and must be solved, and a thriller is a story where the plot builds up to the crime, The Necklace doesn't really fit either category -- and that's OK. Genre-blending can be satisfying.

Witten used alternating timelines to tell Susan's tale: 20 years ago, when her daughter was raped and murdered, and present day, when she embarks on an odyssey to the execution of the man convicted of the crime.

Susan's poverty is apparent on every page, which is one of the book's pluses. Also, Witten does a good job with pacing.

Some of the things that bugged me were the implausible bits, both in Susan's actions and in some really large plot elements (the execution -- it couldn't have gone down the way it was written). Also, the dialogue was -- well, it's OK that it was coarse (if the author wanted to suggest that people down on their luck have limited and vulgar vocabularies), but it was also often shallow and sometimes irrelevant to the context.

So, that's where I landed in my opinion of the book. Fascinating premise, tight plot, but lacking realism and psychological depth.

Thanks to NetGalley and Oceanview Publishing for an advance readers copy.

WOW! I could not put this book down!!! The characters are vivid and the narrative is riveting. There are so many twist and turns, you could get whiplash from them and the ending left me breathless.

I can see why this book is getting hyped as THE book for fall!

Author Matt Witten employs alternating third-person narratives. One begins in 2001 with Susan Lentigo helping her seven-year-old daughter, Amy, make a necklace from plastic beads. The girl strings together a dolphin, duck, and blue unicorn, surrounded by multi-colored plain beads, and happily declares that she is never going to take the necklace off. "Not even when I die." She is wearing the necklace the next morning when Susan drops her off in front of the elementary school and watches her skip off with her three best friends.

Susan's husband, Danny, a realtor, has not sold a house in some time and money is tight. Susan works at the local diner owned by her friend Molly, and plans to cover both the lunch and dinner shifts. So she arrange for her mother, Lenora, to pick Amy up from school with one proviso: she asks Lenora to keep her latest boyfriend away from Amy, who has expressed feeling uncomfortable being around him and called "pretty baby." After Susan's father died, Lenora began seeing a variety of men and making bad choices, especially when drinking but she is a loving grandmother to Amy.

Susan is stunned when Danny calls her at the diner that evening and informs her that when he went to Lenora's house to pick Amy up, neither of them were there. Instead, he discovered a message on the answering machine from Lenora, apologizing for having just remembered she had plans for the evening and would not be able to pick Amy up. Susan never heard the message because Lenora left it after Susan left the house. Four hours after school ended, Amy is missing. Lenora did not pick her up from school, her whereabouts are unknown, and Susan begins living every parent's worst nightmare.

Amy's body is found on the shore of the Mettawee River near Granville, an hour east of Lake Luzerne. There is a bloody gash on her forehead, and forensic evidence shows she was sexually assaulted and strangled. She was not wearing the necklace and it was never found.

Curt Jansen, a drifter, confesses to the crime, claiming that he was staying in a motel in town and parked across the highway from the school. He explains that he targeted Amy because he liked her necklace. Eventually, he recants but to no avail. The jury rejects his claim that he was subjected to hours of interrogation without being provided food or drink, and only wanted to sleep because he drank heavily prior to being arrested so he finally told FBI agent Robert Pappas what he wanted to hear. He is convicted of murder and, after Susan speaks during the sentencing phase of trial, demanding that he be sentenced to death, he is incarcerated in a federal prison in North Dakota.

In the aftermath, Susan falls apart and so does her marriage to Danny. He eventually moves away and they have not been in touch for many years. Susan isn't sure if he even realizes the execution date is approaching, as she has not worked up the courage to actually speak to him when she dials his number. He has remarried and moved to Tamarack where he runs Tamarack Realty and lives in a beautiful home with his second wife, son, and young daughter, Emily.

Via the present day narrative, Witten details Susan's fraught journey to North Dakota. She sets out in the old Dodge Dart she still drives twenty years after transporting Amy to school in it on that tragic day, her pockets stuffed with money donated during the fundraiser. Her trip starts out badly and gets worse. Literally, nothing goes right for her, and Susan soon realizes that if she is going to make it to North Dakota, she must be resourceful and resilient. Witten imbues her with a steely determination to rise above her circumstances that ultimately serves her well as she stumbles upon evidence that the FBI never discovered and struggles to understand how it fits together to reveal whether Curt Jansen actually killed Amy.

The mystery at the heart of the story is centered around Amy's necklace, foreshadowed early in the book. Susan was unable to have more children and never remarried. Her mother has urged her to "move on," but she has led a solitary life working at the diner, mourning her daughter, and awaking the day "the Monster," as she dubbed Jansen long ago, will pay the price for killing her cherished only child. "But somehow, even twenty years later, the story didn't feel finished. She still had a feeling in her bones that she couldn't put her finger on, that didn't make sense, that there was something about her daughter's murder she had missed, and if she had noticed it at the time, she could have prevented it. But what did she miss? What could she have done?"

Witten compassionately portrays Susan's grief, anger, and confusion as she struggles to make sense of the evidence adduced twenty years ago . . . and what she discovers as Jansen's execution date is imminent. The character is believable, undoubtedly at least in part because Witten says she is a composite of several women he has known in the economically challenged foothills of the Adirondacks. As she begins to doubt that the wrong man was convicted, she strives to dismiss her misgivings because they are so upsetting. As memories flood back to her and she re-evaluates all that she assumed to be true in the days following Amy's murder, she becomes increasingly unable to put her suspicions aside. Soon she is on a quest for the truth, following clues and reassessing not only her life with Danny and Amy, but what the evidence might actually mean.

The Necklace is a compelling story of one mother's determination to find justice for her slain child. Susan is an unforgettable and empathetic character. Witten credibly explores her emotional journeys, twenty years apart, believably illustrating her her re-examination of all she readily assumed leads her to the truth. And the truth is unspeakably horrible, but Susan bravely proceeds toward it, unable to continue ignoring the signs she missed so long ago.

Susan is aided by Robert Pappas, the FBI agent who was in charge of the investigation into Amy's killing and proceeded in accordance with established law enforcement protocols. Now retired, he never stopped caring about the cases he worked on, as evidenced by his intent to travel to North Dakota and watch the man he arrested be put to death. He is principled and earnest, believably horrified at the prospect that he helped incarcerate an innocent man for twenty years who could now be executed for a crime he didn't commit. En route to North Dakota, Susan also encounters a high school student, Kyra, with a troubled past. The two of them team up in reckless pursuit of evidence, kindred spirits who manage to find and recognize each other. And Curt Jensen, a man who is transformed by twenty years of incarceration, was inspired by one of the inmates Witten encountered while teaching playwriting at a correctional facility.

The story's pace is relentless, and the scenes unfold vividly, making the tale both engrossing and emotionally resonant. As Susan inches closer to the truth, courageously confronting her suspicions, readers will join her in hoping that her hunches prove inaccurate. The story culminates with heart-stopping scenes inside the penitentiary as plans for the execution move forward. Witten can be forgiven for taking some technical liberties for the sake of dramatic impact (visitors admitted to correctional facilities to witness executions are not escorted through condemned housing units en route to the execution chamber, for instance).

The Necklace is an absorbing and powerful story with a clever twist that provides the answers Susan, Witten's heroic protagonist, has needed for so many years in order to find peace and grieve the loss of her child without doubts creeping in and causing her additional strife.

Ironically, after he wrote the novel, Witten learned about Carol Dodge, an Idaho woman who devoted herself to proving the innocence of the man who was convicted of raping and killing her daughter. She was "relentless," according to Witten, and her efforts resulted in the conviction being overturned and the real murderer apprehended.

In the case of The Necklace, did fiction imitate real life? Readers will undoubtedly enjoy finding out.

The fact that I even came across this book is due entirely to word of mouth. Or, more specifically, word of review. First, my fellow blogger Cathryn Northfield, of 'Life's a Book' wrote a rave review. This would on its own have been enough to sell it to me, because I know from experience that just about any book she loves is one that I just have to read.

But just to give me that extra little bit of encouragement, Wendy Clarke, of the Facebook group 'The Fiction Cafe Book Club' loved it too. And this was enough to instantly have me request a copy from Netgalley and bump it right to the top of my (long, and exponentially growing) 'to read' list.

Well, now I've read it. In a little over 24 hours. And I'm here to tell you that Cathryn and Wendy aren't wrong. 'The Necklace' is one of those books that really are that little bit special.

It begins with a happy and intimate scene of a mother, Susan, and her seven-year-old daughter Amy as together they choose coloured beads for a hand-made necklace. It's a beautifully simple and poignant illustration of the love between a parent and her child and it genuinely left me with a warm and happy feeling.

Which lasted all of about five seconds. Because in Chapter 2, the story fast-forwards 20 years and we learn that, only a few days after that opening scene took place, Amy was raped and murdered. Susan is at a dance organised by her local church, with the objective of raising enough money to allow Susan to travel the 1500 miles to North Dakota where the man convicted of killing her daughter is finally due to face execution.

The characterisation in this book is quite simply superb. I'm not sure that it's possible to describe Susan Lentigo as 'likeable'. She's become too warped and bitter over the last 20 years for that. But, by God, did she become real. Through the next chapters, which switch skillfully between past and present, we live the precise moment when her whole world falls apart and learn that, 20 years on, she has been unable to rebuild it. She still lives in the same house, works in the same fast-food diner, drives the same car and has left Amy's bedroom entirely unchanged from the day she lost her life, even to the point of having been unable to remove the sheets from the bed.

Through Susan, other characters are brought to life just as powerfully. The now-retired FBI agent Robert Pappas, who investigated the case and has never forgotten it. And the initially rebellious teenager Kyra, who has a minor but critical role. We quickly learn that underneath her bolshiness, she has a heart of gold and after just a few short chapters, I wanted to hug the life out of her.

Some parts of the storyline, are, if anything, even better. There's a point where, on her long journey, Susan makes a discovery which suggests that the man who has been languishing on Death Row for the last 20 years might actually be innocent ... or does it? This book is unlike so many psychological thrillers, and all the better for it in that there is no single big, breathtaking reveal that turns the whole of the story on its head. It's much more cleverly, and subtly done than that. An indication that might mean something or nothing, and which results in Susan's mind changing over and over again. And which also resulted my mind changing with it, each and every time.

I do have to be brutally honest and say that there are a few weaknesses and clumsy elements to the 'present day' plot, any one of which could arguably mean that the book as a whole shouldn't work. I can accept one or two of the pitfalls that Susan suffers on her journey, but the sheer amount of ill luck she has feels barely credible. The fact that she's allowed to speak to children in two school playgrounds without question by any security staff just because - why? She's a middle-aged woman and therefore obviously not a danger? - really is a bit weak. And the truth finally being revealed literally seconds before a man is about to receive a lethal injection should be almost laughable.

So it's perhaps all the more remarkable that none of these points detract from the main story in any way. If anything, they all add to it. They show that, even though there is evil in the world there is goodness and kindness too - sometimes to be found in seemingly unlikely places. And they reinforce the reader's admiration of Susan's determination, borne out of one of the most powerful and natural emotions in the world and that so beautifully conveyed in the first chapter: the love between a parent and child.

I have to acknowledge my limitations here. 'The Necklace' is a book that I think could well stay with me for a long time, and I want to tell the world how much I loved it. But Cathryn's blog has been going for a lot longer than mine, and I doubt I'll ever have the reach of a Facebook group that now has 13,000 members. However, if I can do my bit by convincing one more person to read this book, I'll be content.

My thanks to Matt Witten and Netgalley for the auto-approval. I have reviewed the book voluntarily and honestly, and will post my review on Goodreads, Amazon and my personal blog.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Oceanview Publishing for gifting me a digital copy of this crime story by Matt Witten - 4 stars for an intriguing read!

Twenty years ago, Susan and Danny's young daughter was murdered. A suspect confessed and was sentenced to death for the crime. In the present time, Curt, or The Monster, as Susan refers to him, is set to be executed. Susan is determined to be in North Dakota to see him die, so with the help of her Upstate New York community, she sets out to drive there. However, along the way she uncovers what she believes to be evidence that Curt is possibly innocent.

This was a good crime/mystery story that kept me interested until the end. You will feel for Susan as she does everything possible to get to North Dakota. There are additional strong characters in Kyra, a teenager who helps Susan, and Robert, the FBI agent who got Curt's confession. Extra points were given because this story takes place in my area and I loved reading about all the local spots the author put in this book. Be sure to read the author's note at the end - he's spent lots of time in this area as well, plus the book has a true crime story at its inception.

Small-town waitress Susan Lentigo’s 7-year old daughter Amy was raped and murdered twenty years ago. Now Susan is making the trip from Upstate New York to North Dakota to witness her killer’s execution. But things go wrong from the beginning and a penniless Susan is forced to abandon her car and take a series of buses to North Dakota. Deciding to meet her ex-husband Danny for the first time in years, Susan is shocked to see a photo of Danny's new daughter Emily wearing a distinctive necklace. Now Susan begins to doubt whether the right man is about to be executed. Teaming up with now retired FBI Special Agent Robert Pappas and a defiant teenage girl named Kyra, Susan makes a last-ditch effort to put the real killer behind bars.

This was a quick, thrilling read.

I received a digital ARC from Netgalley and Oceanview Publishing with no requirements for a review. I voluntarily read this book and provided this review.

I really enjoyed reading this book. I liked the main character, and several others,. I also liked the fact it was told from the point of view of the past, and present, there was plenty going on in both time streams to keep me interested. The story kept the tension racked up and kept me interested until the last page. Good read.

Gripping and emotional The Necklace is not like anything I've read before! It focuses on Susan Lentigo and her journey from New York state to North Dakota to witness the execution of the man convicted of the murder of her 7 year old daughter Amy 20 years ago. After the town raised money for her trip she heads out on a greyhound bus, but her money is stolen from her almost immediately. This produces many new problems for her...but she does meet some kind people willing to help. Along the way she starts to think back to that time in a way she hadn't before and begins to confront the very real possibility that the condemned man isn't guilty and that someone close to her could be the real culprit. Alternating time lines, but continuing with Susan as the narrator, the tension ratchets up as she fights to free her "monster" and right a wrong. This is a gritty fast read that I thoroughly enjoyed.
Thanks to Netgalley for the opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This is a quick read with an interesting plot that kept my attention the whole time and I really liked the main character. I saw on Goodreads that it’s been optioned for film and I think it would be excellent if it was! I also saw that the author writes for television, including Pretty Little Liars which I loved, so that definitely could’ve played a part of why I enjoyed the writing too!