A FRIEND INDEED by Elka Ray – Review

I received this book for free from the Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

A Friend Indeed by Elka Ray
Published by Blackstone Publishing on May 14 2024
Genres: Adult, Psychological thriller
Pages: 308
Format: eARC
Source: Publisher
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The nitty-gritty: An old friendship is tested after a bad decision is made, in this fun, twisty psychological thriller.

I’m always up for a good twisty thriller, and A Friend Indeed was a pleasant surprise! If you enjoy stories filled with unreliable characters and complex friendships, you will probably enjoy this as well.

The story revolves around two old friends who couldn’t be more different. Dana lives in an affluent neighborhood and has a housekeeper who often manages her three children. Jo is a teacher, and she and her daughter Ruby live in a more run down part of town and struggle to make ends meet. Dana helped Jo after a scandal at her last school, so when she receives a late night call from Dana asking for help, she feels obligated to respond. When she arrives at Dana’s house, she’s shocked to find Dana’s husband Stan dead in a puddle of blood. Dana says they were fighting and he hit her (and yes, she has a bruise on her face) and she retaliated by striking him over the head with a vase.

Jo wants to call the police, but Dana insists that they try to hide the evidence—i.e. dump the body and clean up the crime scene. Stan was asking Dana for a divorce and he wanted custody of the kids, and Dana knows if she is arrested for murder she’ll lose her family. Jo reluctantly agrees to help her friend, although she realizes she’ll be implicated in the murder if anyone finds out. To make matters worse, Jo is driving home early the next morning when she witnesses a hit and run. The problem is, she caused the other car to swerve and strike the woman after running a stop sign. Now she could be involved in two deaths—if the hit and run victim doesn’t make it—and Jo realizes her life may never be the same again.

The story alternates between Jo’s and Dana’s points of view, and I loved seeing the story unfold from different viewpoints. None of the characters in this story are telling the truth, and one in particular tuned out to be much more devious than I expected. Ray populates her story with all sorts of colorful characters who are involved with Dana and Jo and their “problem” in one way or another. There’s Dana’s twin fifteen-year-old boys Chad and Owen who have their own issues and may have seen something the night Dana and Jo dumped the body. There’s Dana’s next door neighbor Ryan who is known as a drug dealer and always seems to be lurking around. Ralph Isles is Stan’s business partner and supposedly stopped by the house that night to talk to Stan. Did he see anything? Chad’s girlfriend Gemma might have been at the house too. Dana just found out she’s been sneaking over to hang out in Chad’s bedroom, and if she saw something, she’d most likely tell her mother Angie, a conniving woman who wouldn’t hesitate in making Dana’s life miserable.

And of course, there are several police detectives who dog Dana and Jo, trying to find out what really happened. Add in a blackmail subplot and you have a packed story, lots of suspects, and a bunch of lies that need to be untangled. There’s never a dull moment in A Friend Indeed, and that hindered the story at times because there was just a little to much going on. Both Jo and Dana have abuse in their pasts, which did add dimension to their characters, but to be honest, I feel like the abuse angle is a bit overdone in a lot of fiction these days.

But those complaints aside, the author does a great job creating tension and keeping the reader guessing. I had fun trying to figure out Jo and Dana, who are both hiding important information, and neither character acted the way I expected them to, which I enjoyed a lot. The twists come fast and furious in the last few chapters, and I’ll admit my head was spinning with everything that happened. Bottom line, though: A Friend Indeed was a lot of fun, and I look forward to reading more of Elka Ray’s books.

Big thanks to the publisher for providing a review copy.