Anatomy of an Alibi Book Review

Hello everyone and welcome back to the blog! Let’s talk about alibis. What makes a good alibi? What makes an alibi believable? What does it mean if you don’t have one? Anatomy of an Alibi by Ashley Elston dives into these questions for each of our main characters. With the death of an elite, powerful criminal defense attorney everyone is a suspect. So, let’s get into it!

Anatomy of an Alibi follows two women, Camille and Aubry. Camille wants to leave her husband. She feels trapped in her marriage, and doesn’t trust her husband, Ben. Aubrey’s wish is to find the driver who killed her parents in a car wreck. The two women find themselves connected in a web of lies and devise a plan. Aubrey will pretend to be Camille so Camille can spy on her husband. Things go sideways when Camille’s husband, Ben, is found dead. If the women thought they couldn’t trust each other before, they definitely can’t now.

I think this book did a really good job of showing the power of an alibi. Not only does it matter if you have one or not, but the main driving point is if it’s believable or not. Camille is shown as distraught and heartbroken over her husband’s death which is as expected. Hank, Ben’s business partner and family friend, says multiple times that he couldn’t imagine Camille being responsible for what happened to Ben.

This right here already proves the power of an alibi. Let me explain (without giving away spoilers).

You know from the book synopsis that Camille and Ben’s marriage is not picture perfect. They’re having issues. Camille goes so far as to hide in her own home to spy on her husband and has Aubrey pose as her. Camille doesn’t have an alibi, a real one that is. But people so easily believe her because why would a loving wife kill her perfect husband? Even Hank is fooled by her performance.

Now, Hank doesn’t have an alibi for the night Ben was killed. He was simply home alone. His issue is whether or not people will believe him. Especially after the police discovered what Ben was planning, that would greatly affect Hank. That only gives him a motive to get rid of Ben. In this situation though, Hank is the one that has true innocence. Meaning even though he doesn’t have an airtight alibi, we know it’s not him who killed Ben.

Elston does a great job of keeping the reader guessing as to what actually happened to Ben. The two main women are full of lies. Hank poses as an ally to the reader because he wants to get to the bottom of things just like we do. He asks all the right questions and is able to pick out the lies…slowly.

This is a fast read. I listened to the audiobook which I recommend! There’s a cast of people for each of the four main characters, Camille, Aubrey, Hank and Ben. I prefer it when there is more than one narrator. It adds just the right amount of dimension compared to listening to one person for hours.

Overall, I would highly recommend checking this book out! I know there was a lot of discourse about Elston’s other book, First Lie Wins. I haven’t read that one, but I can recommend The Anatomy of an Alibi. I gave this 3.5/5 stars!

Alright folks, that is all I have for this week! Come back next week for another blog post. As always, thank you for reading :)