56 pages • 1 hour read
James PattersonA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Content Warning: This section features depictions of graphic violence.
Officer Ginny Risely informs Kyle that Marcie reported a suspicious SUV outside her home. Kyle says he has known Marcie for years. He does not mention that she dumped him, claiming she wanted to leave Hemingway Grove, only to return and marry David. Kyle orders a check of surveillance footage in the surrounding area.
Kyle visits Oliver Grafton, a retired FBI agent who was working on the Cagnina case when the witnesses were killed. Grafton describes Silas as “one of the most cold-blooded, ruthless killers ever born” (152). He recalls that Blair, the lead agent on the case, suggested Silas may have faked his own death. Kyle wonders if David could be Silas.
Fifteen years earlier, Marcie told Howard she realized that she had misheard Silas. Their client had suggested he would “pull a Herrin,” not a “heron.” Liam Herrin escaped prison by killing a prison guard, changing clothes with him, and setting fire to the body. The discovery led Marcie to believe that Silas had similarly faked his own death. Defying Howard, Marcie refused to sign the motion to dismiss the case. She resigned and returned to Hemingway Grove to care for her dying mother. A year later, she met David.
Camille receives a visit from Kyle but refuses to let him in. Kyle asks why her car was outside the Bowers’s home in the early hours of the morning.
Kyle asks Camille why she relocated to Hemingway Grove from Chicago and if she knows Silas. Covering her agitation, Camille asks him to leave.
Becky tells Agent Blair that DCB Enterprises (owned by David Bowers) is an offshore corporation. David files his own tax returns, purchased his current home with cash, and his pub’s takings are unusually healthy. Becky adds that if she planned to launder money, she would do so through a bar or restaurant. Blair reminds Becky that they always believed Cagnina had concealed $20 million before he was convicted. He suggests that David is Cagnina’s money launderer.
During his previous break-in to the Bowers’s family home, Tommy installed a device to record the alarm code. Using the code to turn off the house’s alarm system, he writes a message on the foyer wall in red spray paint. After resetting the alarm, he leaves the door open when he exits.
Kyle is greeted by Officer Ginny Risely when he arrives at the Bowers’s home. Responding to the alarm, Ginny was first on the scene and discovered the back door open. David arrived shortly afterward and was upset to see officers inside his home. He asked them to leave before they could search the property and did not want to report the incident. The intruder left a message on the foyer wall.
Listening in to the police scanner, Tommy hears an officer state that David does not wish to file a break-in report. This information confirms Tommy’s theory that David did not want the police to see the message on his wall. Tommy calls his “boss” to say he has “found him.”
Kyle discovers that David is paying the lease on Camille’s apartment. He calls Ollie Grafton, asking if Silas had a girlfriend.
After an appointment with her obstetrician, Camille discovers Kyle waiting for her in the parking lot.
Kyle confronts Camille with his theory that David is Silas and that she is his girlfriend. Noting that Camille worked in technical support for the Chicago U.S. Marshals Service, he suggests she used her insider knowledge to leak the witnesses to Cagnina. She then helped Silas relocate. Kyle hypothesizes that Silas married Marcie for cover, but his identity was exposed when he saved a man from drowning.
Camille does not respond when Kyle asks why Silas is hiding from Cagnina.
Agent Blair receives a call from Ollie, who reveals that a police officer has been asking questions about Silas.
Kyle pulls Marcie over, claiming she was speeding. He angrily demands to know David’s real name, suggesting that David’s story of being orphaned is “convenient.”
Camille tells David how Kyle suggested he was Silas. She insists he must tell Marcie everything. David says the truth will “kill her.”
Marcie laughs when Kyle suggests that David is Silas Renfrow. However, she also recalls that she never saw Silas’s face. Marcie is confused when Kyle refers to the message left on their foyer wall. Kyle shows her a photo of the spray-painted message that reads, “I know who you are” (199).
Marcie returns home and checks the foyer wall. There is no message, and she realizes David has freshly painted over it.
Marcie conceals her distress from the children. In the attic, she goes through a box marked as old tax records. She finds photographs of a mother, father, and son. The son, who is college-aged in one of the pictures, resembles David. She also finds five keys to safe deposit boxes at Prinell Bank. Nevertheless, she remains convinced that David cannot be Silas.
Marcie discovers that Prinell Bank is in Champaign. She waits at home to confront David.
Armed and wearing a ski mask, Tommy confronts David in the pub’s parking lot, declaring, “Michael Cagnina says hi” (210). David head-butts Tommy, and in the subsequent tussle, the gun goes off. David collapses in a pool of blood.
Kyle calls Marcie to say David has been shot.
Marcie speaks to David at the hospital before he is taken for emergency surgery. Telling him that she knows who he is, she whispers a name. David blinks to communicate that she is correct but denies their marriage was a lie. Marcie tells David she loves him and will take care of everything.
In these chapters, Patterson and Ellis demonstrate their ability to maintain a fast-paced and suspenseful plot. Tension builds through unexpected narrative twists, culminating in Tommy’s potentially fatal shooting of David. Meanwhile, red herrings continue to misdirect the reader, including Kyle’s theory that David is Silas and that Camille used her position in the U.S. Marshals Service to leak the location of the witness detention center. Camille’s failure to cooperate with Kyle (due to the confidential nature of her job as a witness protection agent) only seems to confirm her guilt.
The shifting viewpoints of the novel’s subplots create a sense of urgency as Janowski, Blair, and Malone’s separate investigations draw nearer to exposing David’s true identity. Each character’s role in the narrative draws on familiar tropes of crime fiction. Kyle’s assertion, “There are things happening in my town. Things that aren’t right” (182), underlines his perception of himself as the defender of peace and harmony in Hemingway Grove. FBI agent Frances Blair is presented as the archetypal law enforcer haunted by a criminal who evaded justice. The metaphorical description of Cagnina as Blair’s “white whale” likens him to Captain Ahab in Herman Melville’s novel Moby Dick (1851). Blair’s fixation with the mobster, whom he blames for hampering his career, is reminiscent of Ahab’s determination to destroy the whale to whom he lost his leg. Meanwhile, Tommy is depicted as a criminal antagonist, bringing chaos and violence to the small town. The novel conceals that the two men are working together by presenting Tommy and Agent Blair’s investigations as separate subplots.
These chapters explore a recurring theme: The Impact of the Past on the Present. As the narrative progresses, it becomes clear that previous events are responsible for disrupting the Bowers family’s domestic contentment. Current events seem linked to Marcie’s professional involvement with Silas 15 years earlier. Furthermore, David’s attempts to conceal his history and identity come unstuck due to saving the drowning man at Anna’s Bridge. The unforeseeable consequences of human actions are emphasized as the lives of Marcie and David unravel.
The possibility that David is Silas intensifies the novel’s exploration of The Role of Trust and Deception in Relationships. The theme adds psychological depth to the action-packed narrative, as the emotional impact on the protagonist is underlined. The authors convey Marcie’s sense of disorientation, “feeling like up has suddenly become down and down is now up” (200), as she faces the likelihood that the foundations of her family are built on lies. Marcie experiences inner turmoil as her belief that she would “know the difference between a loving family man and a cold-blooded assassin” (205) conflicts with mounting evidence that David has lied about many aspects of his identity. David’s decision to paint over the menacing message on the foyer wall before Marcie sees it becomes a metaphor for the many things he has concealed from his wife.
Marcie’s unselfish character attributes are illustrated through her prioritization of her children’s welfare throughout increasingly disturbing events, linking to the theme of The Nature of Heroism. Concealing her emotional turmoil from Lincoln and Grace, she ensures that family life remains as normal as possible for them. Marcie’s vow that she “will protect them. That will be job number one” (209) demonstrates a selfless devotion to her children from which she derives inner strength. However, the final chapter of this section prompts readers to reassess their understanding of the protagonist. When Marcie whispers an undisclosed name to David, the reader is encouraged to assume that his affirmative response confirms he is Silas. Therefore, Marcie’s declaration of continued love and support for her husband is surprising and difficult to comprehend. The red herring prompts readers to question Marcie’s moral compass.
By James Patterson
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Loyalty & Betrayal
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Marriage
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Memory
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Mothers
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Psychological Fiction
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Safety & Danger
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The Past
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Trust & Doubt
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Truth & Lies
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