On Borrowed Time

Starred review from December 20, 2010
At the start of this excellent stand-alone from Rosenfelt (Down to the Wire), 29-year-old journalist Richard Kilmer is planning to ask the love of his life, Jennifer Ryan, to marry him. But on a drive from Manhattan's Upper West Side, where they share an apartment, to Jen's hometown two hours outside the city, they have an accident and Jen disappears. After Richard discovers to his astonishment that Jen's family, her friends—even his friends—claim never to have known her, he begins a series of magazine articles about his unsettling experience (a nice variation on the frequent but unconvincing hush-hush imperative of many thrillers). Meanwhile, it becomes clear that some nefarious memory experiment involving Richard is underway. The arrival from Wisconsin of Allison Tynes, who says she's Jen's identical twin sister, may strike some as contrived, but all will marvel at the way Rosenfelt builds suspense while keeping the plot line from veering too far into the kooky and hokey.