Reading in the Mountains

Gosh, I wish they would translate Musso’s books into English, but if you know Romanian or French, this one’s for you. Musso is such a brilliant thriller author—sometimes I feel like he’s secretly the real-life Dexter Morgan.

“There are three versions of the truth: mine, yours, and the truth itself.”

Côte d’Azur, spring 2023. A yacht drifts off the coast of Cannes, carrying Oriana Di Pietro—Italian publisher, Milanese heiress, and soon, a victim. Brutally assaulted, she falls into a coma for ten days before her life slips away. Who killed Oriana? Four voices try to answer: Adrien, her mysterious jazz-pianist husband; Adèle, his young mistress; Justine, the police officer hunting the truth; and Oriana herself, recounting her final weeks from the edge of death. No one lies, but no one agrees either.

What blew me away was how the story starts—we’re thrown straight into Oriana’s violent attack, and then we learn of her death through news reports and articles. That’s insane to me, and it shows how good Musso’s writing is. He writes with this sharp, cunning, almost surgical precision that completely transfixes you.

A year later, a detective is still searching for Oriana’s killer, with her focus fixed on the husband. And yes, the husband had an affair—but not in the way you’d expect. Just when you’re sure you’ve got it figured out, Musso twists the plot again: the husband isn’t the killer. He keeps me on edge, always dangling the truth just out of reach. He has me in a chokehold, every single time.

Now here’s the part that drove me crazy: Oriana had brain cancer. Honestly, that subplot felt unnecessary on top of her being a murder victim. But Musso used it to show just how controlling Oriana was—even in death. She actually paid the babysitter to seduce her husband, because she wanted to handpick who would raise her kids after she was gone. She trained the babysitter to take her place. Oriana literally seduced her husband a second time in the same life, through another woman—and that’s so twisted, but also strangely poetic.

Normally, I don’t enjoy too much action in thrillers, but even in the chaos, Musso keeps me hooked. It’s this constant dance of deception, and he’s always one step ahead of me.

And that ending? Wild. I had a completely different theory about the killer, and I was dead wrong. The reveal caught me off guard. I actually liked how the cancer storyline was wrapped up—it almost ruined the book for me, but Musso nailed it in the end. After Justine’s final talk with Oriana’s doctor, I felt half-right, half-wrong, but totally satisfied. Then came the epilogue. The killer was caught, Justine was sleeping with Oriana’s husband, and for a second everything seemed fine… until those last lines hit. And suddenly I wasn’t so sure the killer was caught after all.

Surprised is an understatement. Breathless is more like it. A thriller that leaves me stunned like this? That’s Musso at his finest.