Title: The OutlierAuthor: Elisabeth Eaves
Published by: Random House Canada on Aug. 6, 2024
Genres: Mystery/Thriller
Pages: 344
Format: ARC, Paperback
Source: Penguin Random House
Book Rating: 8/10
An audaciously twisty psychological thriller in which finding the killer is only one of two mysteries its anti-heroine, Cate Winter, tries to unravel. The other: when pushed to extremes, what is she herself capable of?
Cate Winter, at 34, is a wildly successful neuroscientist and entrepreneur who has invented a cure for Alzheimer’s that will improve the lives of millions. On the verge of selling her biotech company for an obscene sum, she is also about to become very rich.
But Cate has a secret that keeps her deeply uneasy about everything she is and does: she grew up at the Cleckley Institute, a treatment facility for the rehabilitation of psychopathic children. And, as far as she knows, she is the institute’s only success: all of her peers have become thwarted, maladjusted or even criminal adults.
Then Cate discovers the existence of another ex-patient and outlier who might prove that her success isn’t a fluke. He has not only stayed out of jail, but he’s made a mark in business and science. Though his identity is confidential, she breaks the rules and drops everything to track him down. And when she finds him, living under an assumed name in Baja California, she is immediately obsessed. Like her, he is driven and brilliant, an innovator willing to do what it takes to perfect a new energy technology that will stop global warming. Here, at last, is her mirror, her ultimate collaborator, the possible answer to the enigma of her nature.
But in the wake of a mysterious death, Cate can’t avoid suspecting him. If he is involved, do his ends justify his means? Ruthless herself, she’s about to find out whether there are any moral lines she won’t cross.
Review:
Brisk, intricate, and suspenseful!
The Outlier is a thought-provoking, ominous tale that transports you into the life of Cate Winter, a high-achieving psychopath who, after selling her biotech company for millions, is determined to do whatever it takes to identify and track down the only other successful resident, who didn’t turn to a life of crime, from the research institute she grew up in.
The prose is tight and intense. The characters are secretive, impulsive, and driven. And the plot unravels quickly into a gripping tale full of twists, turns, lies, deception, power, abuse, corruption, greed, indulgence, revelations, ruthless ambition, and violence.
Overall, The Outlier is a sinister, entertaining, edgy debut by Eaves that explores the line between nature and nurture and does a wonderful job of combining ecological issues, poor choices, questionable motivations, and morality all in one eerily creepy storyline.
This novel is available now.
Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.
Thank you to Penguin Random House Canada for gifting me a copy in exchange for an honest review.
About Elisabeth Eaves
ELISABETH EAVES is a debut novelist and an award-winning travel writer and journalist who has covered nuclear weapons, biological threats, and climate change for numerous publications including The New Yorker, Forbes, and the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. She is the author of two critically acclaimed nonfiction books: Wanderlust: A Love Affair with Five Continents, which the New York Times Book Review called “a heady, headlong chronicle of a decade and a half spent adrift” and declared a Notable Book; and Bare: The Naked Truth About Stripping, which The Washington Post called “a first-rate, first-person work of social anthropology.” Born and raised in Vancouver, Elisabeth lives with her husband in Seattle.
Photo by Mary Grace Long.
