How Will I Know You? by Jessica Treadway

How Will I Know You? by Jessica Treadway
My rating: 2.5 of 5 stars

The body of high school senior is found in the woods at the edge of a pond after she had gone missing leading everyone to believe that Joy had drowned. After further investigation though it’s found that Joy had actually been strangled so the search begins for a killer in northern upstate New York.

Interviewing witnesses and conducting an investigation leads police to Martin, a black graduate student who is immediately placed under arrest but did Martin really have motive to kill Joy or is he being targeted due to the color of his skin?

How Will I Know You? is told from changing POVs throughout the book between Susanne, Joy’s mother and a professor at the local college, Martin the black graduate student who is the number one suspect, Harper who had been Joy’s best friend for years but the friendship had been on the rocks but who had been with Joy at the pond and is a potential eye witness and Tom, a rescue diver and son in law of the town’s police chief. The story also is told from alternating timelines giving the before the murder and the after during the investigation.

For me this story just focused a bit too much on race all throughout the investigation. Perhaps I’m a dreamer but I really wish race wasn’t an issue in the world although I know it still can be but I felt like we will never get there if even fiction revolves around the color of someone’s skin so I never felt comfortable with the story the way I normally would. This also made it fairly obvious that the killer wouldn’t be the one being pointed at in the start and the twists and turns just didn’t drag me in and get me involved the way some other thrillers seem to do.

Unfortunately, this one just wasn’t a favorite of mine. In the end I decided on 2.5 stars for How Will I Know You? Just not my cup of tea but some do seem to really enjoy this one so it would be one I’d urge to decide for yourself as the writing was good enough I just wasn’t a fan of the story.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.