A girl's best friend is her mutter.

A Review

Chris Bohjalian has delivered another page-turner. If you’re a fan, you know better than to expect a formula in his plots, but he is consistent about his strong suit: characters.

In The Red Lotus, he artfully pulls us into the psyche of Alexis, the main character; the PI she hires to help her; Alexis’s overbearing mother, and even her veterinarian best friend.

The glimpses of raw human reality of their lives make it easy to — impossible not to — identify with these people. We have shared experiences, so we understand them. We know why Alexis is driven to solve the riddle of why her boyfriend lied to about their trip to Vietnam and how he ended up dead. We understand why the PI goes against his friend’s recommendation and takes up Alexis’s cause.