When Evie was eleven, her best friend, Lianne, was abducted by an unknown. Her body was found twelve days later. Evie is now a 22 year old reporter and the case is still unsolved, although police think they know who the perpetrator was. Unfortunately (a) they can’t prove it and (b) they can’t locate him.
Ever since the abduction, Evie has been fixated on the case, initially reading the gory details in the newspapers. Eleven years later, she still can’t get it out of her mind. Her current assignment is compiling a list of all the abducted girls over the past 20-30 years, in order to prove that things are getting worse, instead of better. Of course, this brings back all the memories of Lianne’s disappearance.
Although Evie denies it, her new immersion into missing girls is taking over her well being. She ‘remembers’ things she’d forgotten at the time Lianne went missing. She’s finding links between people that may or may not be important–or real. She fears that someone is following her, looking into her apartment. Her parents are concerned for her. Her best friend, David, two years younger, who she used to babysit for, is concerned. Is what she purports to see reality or a vivid imagination or hallucination?
De Mariaffi, whose only other published works is a collection of short stories, has penned quite the intriguing book. There is suspense on every page, right up to the end (think music constantly forewarning danger playing in the background–this would make a great movie adaptation). She has readers convinced ‘who done it’. She constantly skips around time-wise. Evie can be talking to David one minute and without notice she’s thinking of things that happened eleven years ago or yesterday. While it is sometimes disconcerting, it just adds to the imbalance of Evie’s jumbled mind.
There are no quotation marks when characters speak, making it difficult to determine whether it’s a thought, spoken word, or description. In many ways, this book is written as a ‘train of thought’ book, skipping around as would one’s mind as it races through various thoughts, possibilities, scenarios.
I’m still trying to figure out how I feel about the ending. It’s not what I expected. Let me know your thoughts after you read The Devil You Know. It is absolutely worth the read.
Two Heads Together 
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