The Only One Who Knows: A Novel - Hardcover

Matlin, Lisa M.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0593599985 ISBN 13: 9780593599983

Verlag: Bantam Books Inc, 2026

Inhaltsangabe

A failed TV news reporter with a talent for shark-fishing returns to her hometown just as bodies begin washing ashore in this nail-biting suspense novel from the author of The Stranger Upstairs.

Minnow Greenwood, previously known for stealing her way into the hearts of viewers as Melbourne’s number one morning show host, is now back in her small hometown of Kangaroo Bay. After a horrifying and unexpected episode, she has no choice but to join her estranged brother in their family business of shark fishing. For an insomniac like Minnow, the work is strangely thrilling—there’s something alluring about the dark water at night. Something exciting, grimy… fitting. And maybe it’s not even so bad reconnecting with her brother, who’s the only person who ever saw her for herself. But the last thing she expects to surface on the beach is a human body.

Kangaroo Bay is a town quietly brimming with rage towards invasive tourists and host to a disquieting number of shark attacks—there's no sympathy for the wayward swimmer. Except the media soon uncover that the victim was declared missing weeks before, and was long dead before they even entered the water. When the journalist in Minnow kicks back into drive, she discovers something else: for over forty years, there have been a steady number of missing persons around the area, including her own father’s disappearance ten years ago.

This is her one opportunity to reclaim her career as a journalist, and to learn what really happened to her father, but as Minnow digs deeper into the spate of missing tourists and the mystery of her father, she realizes someone is desperate to keep the secrets buried. . .and then another body washes ashore.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Lisa M. Matlin is the author of The Stranger Upstairs. She was a guitarist in a rock band before switching from songwriting to story writing. She lives in Melbourne, Australia, with her husband, pug, and golden retriever. She’s probably rewatching The Walking Dead right now and trying not to laugh at her own jokes. Matlin is a passionate mental health advocate and your dog’s number one fan.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Chapter 1

Here’s what the TV producers of Morning, Sunshine! want you to know about their three co-hosts:

Joy Marriot is a grandmotherly TV veteran of fifty-­seven years.

Lynny Stewart is her hooting sidekick.

Melanie (me) is the new kid on the block. The timid voice of reason to Joy’s opinions and Lynny’s nonstop shrieking.

Here’s what they don’t want you to know:

One of us tiptoes out to the staff parking lot to enjoy an early-­afternoon pounding from the sports reporter who is definitely not her husband. (Lynny.)

One of us released a Paleo cookbook three years ago and pledged 15 percent of the profits to a cancer charity. They’re still waiting for the money. (Joy.)

One of us is staring at a terrifying text from her fiancé and stuffing her palm against her mouth to hold back the screams. That one is hanging on by a f***ing thread. (Me.)

I sit stiffly on the edge of the white leather couch, angling my phone away from the bustling set designers as I read my fiancé’s text over and over. The studio lights are bright and burning hot, but I’ve never felt so cold. Somewhere in the darkness the director yells, “Showtime in five minutes, people!”

I stare at my boots, hyperventilating. I cannot sit through two entire hours of this live taping and pretend to give a damn about this morning’s news when my own life has just gone to hell in one text.

Everything is a blur of noise, color, and movement. Aqua skirt. Red hair teased to maximum height. Skin stretched so tight it looks like it hurts. Joy.

Bright pink and plunging blouse. Lemony perfume and a shrieking laugh. Lynny.

My co-­hosts sink onto the couch beside me, crossing their legs like synchronized swimmers. Their stilettos gleam under the studio lights, the heels so thin and sharp, you could use them to play darts.

My shirt is seashell white and buttoned so tightly at my throat, it hurts each time I swallow. My culottes are hideously ugly and the color of iced coffee. My suede ankle boots are blocks of concrete.

White. Camel. Neutral. That’s me. I’m the one brought in once a week to, in the producer’s words, “connect with the Gen Y crowd.”

It’s not working. The ratings are appalling, and the network has no money. I only got this job because I knew the right people, and no one else could stomach Joy’s on-­air bullying like I do. But I’m an expert at blending into the wall and the couch until the threat disappears. Survival instincts I carried over from childhood.

Underneath my neutral shirt and neutral bra is a stinging rash with raised red bumps. Hives, my doctor said. Have you been stressed lately?

Joy sips at a coffee as bitter and boiling as she is. She’s the first of us to reach for a tissue when a Z-­list reality star brims with dutiful tears. The first to pat their knee and cut to a commercial while staring grimly into the camera, only to reappear smiling three minutes later. How can you trust someone who shuts off their emotions like a light switch?

Lynny opens her cavernous mouth wide while the makeup artist applies another coat of gloss. She’s forty-­two, shrill as a whistle and easily bored, and I’m pretty sure she loves gossip and screwing the sports reporter more than her four children.

Look at them, these two brightly colored fish. Seventy years of showbiz experience between them. They gleam. They preen.

And they scheme.

You have to hand it to these pretty, dirty bitches.

“Two minutes!” someone yells out, and I jump. My co-­hosts stare at me like they’ve just remembered I’m here. That’s me. I’m so agreeable, so neutral, I might as well be the couch.

Lynny practically shoves the makeup artist away and inches over, her whole body an exclamation mark. Instinctively, I place my phone face down in my lap. My entire body trembles.

“Melanie, dear!” she yells, as if she’s surprised to see me. I’ve sat beside her once a week from 5 to 7 a.m. for nearly four months now. “And where were you this morning, missy?”

I missed the morning briefing. All of it. I stumbled into the makeup chair five minutes ago, stumbled out again, sat on the couch, and received the worst text of my life.

She doesn’t wait for me to answer, that’s how short her attention span is. “How’s that gorgeous man of yours?”

Oliver is my fiancé of three months, boyfriend of seven, a meteorologist on a rival network, one that actually has money. He proposed to me right on this couch, live on air, despite me telling him repeatedly that I hate surprises. My fiancé loves grand gestures, but it was at that moment I realized that none of them were for me.

I hesitated for long enough that Lynny cried out, “Melanie! Put the poor dear out of his misery!”

“Okay . . .” I finally stammered. “Sure.”

Oliver drove us home in steaming silence and didn’t talk to me for two days. That was not the first red flag I ignored.

“He’s good!” My voice cracks and I blurt something to cover it up. “Busy. We’re both so busy lately.”

We are indeed busy. I am, anyway. I left him again this week.

“You hold on to that one,” Lynny says, giving me a playful tap on the arm. “He’s a keeper.”

Like hell he is. But it’s one thing to want to leave. It’s another thing entirely when it’s eleven o’clock on a Friday night and your fiancé is screaming at you, again, because you looked at the Uber driver too long, and your dress is too short, and you’re suddenly, startlingly aware that your confident, assertive fiancé is actually a controlling shithead who’s stealing pieces of you little by little and you’ve allowed it.

Maybe you weren’t even fully aware. I wasn’t. But that night, I looked into my fiancé’s eyes, and I saw my father. And I stumbled outside, exhausted and desperate, because I don’t fight. I don’t flight. I just freeze, and yes, I hate myself for it. In the movies, the woman packs up her shit, leaves the house, and drains the joint account. Begins again.

But it’s been three days since I left, and all I’ve done is survive. I left in a daze and spent the last two nights in a hotel, lying on a double bed, staring at nothing. I didn’t even think to take Jessie. That’s how crazy I was. How crazy it makes you. It must have been how my mum felt. I think I finally understand how she could leave us behind. I understand now, Mum. I understand and I’m sorry.

“Thirty seconds!”

Smears of color. Hot lights. Cold hands.

All I can think about is the text I sent Oliver this morning as I sat on the edge of the hotel bed. I’m coming back to get Jessie.

And his response:

You’re not taking Jessie.

I feel like I’m choking. He bought Jessie, our golden retriever, as an engagement present. He’s walked her twice in three months and snaps at her when she gets underfoot. Poor Jessie is always flustered around him. So am I. I suspect now that Oliver just wanted the image of Jessie and of me. A compliant wife and a golden puppy for the shitty tabloid interviews he wanted us to pose for. And I wanted somebody who didn’t see my chronic people pleasing as an open door.

You’re not taking...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Bantam Books Inc
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2026
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0593599985
• ISBN 13: 9780593599983
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 336
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Buchbär; info@buchbaer.de; ; Weberstr. 67; Osnabrück; 49084; Deutschland