THE PERFECT ONES

A picture-perfect trip goes horribly wrong in this fast-paced exploration of friendship and the dark side of social media, perfect for fans of Lucy Foley and Andrea Bartz.

Two days after arriving in Iceland for a promotional trip, Instagram mega-influencer Alabama Wood goes missing. With no leads, the Icelandic police start their investigation by focusing on the two influencers seemingly closest to Alabama on the trip: Celeste Reed, Alabama's best friend of ten years, and Hollie Goodwin, fitness guru and Alabama's unwilling idol. Celeste and Alabama have grown apart recently because Celeste has been too distracted by her five-year-old's behavioral issues and her husband's refusal to admit that there's a problem. What Celeste doesn't tell them is how she has been coping with these worries and how it involves Alabama in ways no one would guess. On the outside, Hollie appears to have everythingthe husband, the body, and over one million Instagram followers. In reality, however, Hollie came to Iceland to escape the implosion of her life behind the screen. The only person who suspected something amiss behind Hollie's precisely filtered pictures is Alabama. As secrets are revealed and loyalties are tested, debut author Nicole Hackett asks: do we control our online image, or does it control us? Nicole Hackett is a biochemical patent agent for a law firm based in Washington, DC. With the other side of her brain she writes brilliant thrillers, like this debut from Crooked Lane.