I love a good mystery and books full of suspense and thrills really glue me to the pages. K. A. Tucker’s He Will Be My Ruin didn’t met my expectations and then some in every way–from not being able to nail down who the murderer was to a great cast of supporting characters to a strong heroine that didn’t back down without being annoying. I was immediately trying to guess who killed Celine Gonzalez from the very beginning of the book, and my choice kept changing until the big reveal.

Two Very Different Girls That Are Great Friends…

Maggie and Celine had been best friends ever since Celine’s mother was hired as Maggie’s nanny when the girls were young. The girls were fast friends despite their financial differences, and their friendship endured even as Maggie heads a non-profit that provides and builds things in third world countries with Maggie taking a very active role and being away from the States for months at a time while Celine has moved to New York City to pursue her dream of becoming an antiques appraiser. But while Maggie has always been fast to share her money with Celine, Celine is too proud to ask for help when she needs it–especially when her mother gets cancer and the bills start to mount. And that’s when Celine turns to something dangerous to make extra cash, something that she keeps secret from her mother and Maggie. When Celine is found dead in her bed from an apparent overdose of pills and booze, Maggie doesn’t buy the official story and she begins to dig into Celine’s life–and she finds that she didn’t know much about Celine in the last few years at all.

A Mourning Best Friend Comes to Take Care of the Apartment and Estate…

As Maggie packs up the antiques-filled apartment that Celine has left behind, she finds Celine’s diaries that she’s kept since she was a teenager. But the last diary is missing, as is Celine’s cell phone. Since the police won’t reopen Celine’s case as a suspected homicide, Maggie hires a private detective to look into Celine’s life, and she takes matters into her own hands as well–delivering her right into the killer’s grasp.

A Flawed, Headstrong Heroine That You Can Root For…

Maggie just wouldn’t let the idea of Celine killing herself go since she knew that her friend had too much to live for, and she definitely believed that Celine wouldn’t put her dying mother through the pain of her suicide. Some of the things that Maggie did along the way, like get romantically involved with the super of the apartment building, and tangle with Celine’s super rich and powerful maybe-ex-boyfriend investment banker. But she’s a loyal friend and she trusts her gut, which does help her out. Even though her family owns an energy company and she has a giant trust fund, she’s trying to do something good for the world by getting her hands dirty with her non-profit.

Such a Great Supporting Cast of Characters…

The secondary characters really shine here. The private detective, Doug, and his tech guru Zac were a little quirky but so smart and savvy. The seemingly nosy old lady neighbor across the hall, Ruby, turns out to be so much more than she seemed, and the trio of Doug, Zac, and Ruby giving Maggie suggestions on how to investigate the murder was quite clever and sometimes conflicting between themselves. The only characters that weren’t all that likeable were Celine herself and the banker. Through Celine’s diaries, she definitely had a gold digger streak and a bit of a resentment towards Maggie, who’d never done anything but be her friend and help her out.

I give He Will Be My Ruin a 4.5 out of 5. You really get to know both Maggie and Celine since Maggie narrates her part of the story and Celine’s life is filled in with her journal entries. I went back and forth between who I thought killed Celine, and there was a time that I even thought she just might have killed herself. The suspense built perfectly throughout the entire book until it just exploded in the end. I’m a little sad that this is a standalone since I really want to see Ruby, Doug, and Zac work together on something–with Maggie footing the bill. I was really glad to see that in the end, Maggie had matured and learned that she could do something when her gut tells her that someone is lying–and that phone call to Doug or Zac made me very happy. I highly recommend this to lovers of suspense and mysteries.