Tangerine: A Novel

Lucy and Alice are best friends at Bennington, their relationship intense and exclusive, until a tragedy wrenches them apart. Alice, emotionally delicate since the death of her parents when she was a child, hastily marries after graduation and flees to Tangier with her new husband, John. Only Alice suspects that Lucy was responsible for what happened at Bennington, and she never wants to see Lucy again. A year later, however, in 1956, Lucy arrives in Tangier, with no reason but to reconnect with Alice. Hints of the old friendship reappear, but Alice can never shake her mistrust–even fear–of Lucy. As Lucy’s determination to win Alice for herself deepens, she pursues more and more desperate measures to ensure that Alice has no choice but to choose her over John. And Alice suspects–correctly–that no one will believe her when Lucy takes things too far.

In alternating viewpoints, Alice and Lucy detail the history of their friendship and the murky emotional landscape in which it’s rooted. Lucy’s scheming is insidious and brilliant, Alice’s unstable helplessness enraging. Tangier is the perfect setting for this story, teetering on the cusp of independence and inhospitable to a timid woman like Alice. This is a top-notch, page-turning literary mystery.