The
Gone Girl template of endless plot reversals and clever misdirections abound in Aimee Molloy's
Goodnight Beautiful, a suspenseful domestic thriller that amounts to little else. Newlyweds Sam and Annie trade their New York City lives for a fresh start in upstate New York, partly so that Sam can be near his mother who is suffering from dementia and has been put up in an elderly care centre. Sam's therapist job at his newly opened practice keeps him busy, while Annie — after having given up her job as a professor at Columbia — lands a visiting faculty position at the local college. All seems to be well and good until one fine day Sam disappears without a trace, complicating their small-town move and dashing their hopes of a happily ever after. Molloy sets up an intriguing 'role-playing' puzzle, while also upending gender notions, at the same time doling out twists with a precision that never fails to elicit a surprise. Yet for all its deceptions and red-herrings, it falls prey to familiar genre trappings and a rushed character development that makes it a readable but not particularly memorable entry.
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