There are things that you’ll always remember.

Your first kiss. The first car you bought yourself. A mentor who helped you, a recipe you can make without thinking, that One Best Dog — you’ll never forget any of those things. A toy you loved as a child. The best day of your life. Or, as in the new novel, “The Heights” by Louise Candlish, the worst one.

Michaela Ross thought she knew how the manuscript would end, the manuscript that Felix Penney had given her to help her understand the work he was doing at the Correctional Institute. She met the script’s author, then she started reading, thinking she knew the story…

Ellen Saint wasn’t happy that her son, Lucas, was chosen to be the school buddy for the new boy at his private academy. Kids like that Kieran Watts are trouble, but then again, who better than Lucas, Ellen’s A-level-working Lucas, to show the boy around, right?

But did it have to extend to welcoming the boy into her home? Ellen was uneasy around Kieran; even her mother said that the boy was “cold,” and the hateful looks he gave Ellen when Lucas wasn’t looking, well, they were terrifying.

And then one thing led to another and another and soon, Lucas was always hanging around with Kieran, staying out late, neglecting his studies, getting into mischief, doing drugs. Ellen and Lucas’ father, Vic, tried to discourage their son from the friendship; Ellen’s husband, Justin, tried, too, but nothing worked.

She actively hated Kieran and the hate turned seething when he was involved in a car accident that killed Lucas. She was sure that Kieran was a monster, and monsters — especially evil ones — shouldn’t be allowed to walk free. So then why did Ellen spot Kieran in a building near a new client’s apartment years after he’d been put in prison, two years after she’d paid Vic £15,000 to have someone kill him? Yet there he was, Kieran walking around, working, successful, wealthy. Taunting her. Teasing.

Oooooh, you’re going to like how “The Heights” unfolds. You’re going to like that it has more twists than a four-inch screw, and that it’ll make you wonder again and again if you’ve really got the right bad guy pegged here while you’re reading.

You’ll love how author Louise Candlish grabs you by both sides of your head and makes you dive with Ellen into the kind of madness that ruins families — even as you struggle because Ellen is so darn likeable, with her unique nail-biting phobia and her willingness to stretch her imagination like a second-grader stretches gum. This novel sometimes reads like a prison tell-all, sometimes like a newspaper interview, and sometimes like the kind of book you want to look away from but you can’t, and you’ll like that, too.

You’ll be reluctant to leave “The Heights” alone, so you can consider it a relatively fast read. It’s everything a thriller-lover wants, everything a murder-mystery fan craves, exactly what an intrigue reader enjoys, in a title you’ll likely remember.

“The Heights” by Louise Candlish
c.2021, Atria
$17.00
416 pages