书名：A Simple Favor Movie Tie-in 举手之牢
作者：Darcey Bell
出版社名称：Harper
出版时间：2018
语种：英文
ISBN：9780062883490
商品尺寸：10.6 x 2.3 x 16.8 cm
包装：简装
页数：368

★这是一个关于背叛和秘密的故事。不到末尾一刻，无法确定到底是谁欺骗了谁。《举手之牢》是达西·贝尔的处女作，她以洗练鲜活的笔法，通过网络博客和三位主角的第1人称真实独白，带领读者一步步拼凑出事件真相。

★美国Goodreads书评网站超千条热评！书探形容：“剧情极为峰回路转的悬疑小说佳作！”

★版权售出24个国家，精彩程度更胜《消失的爱人》与《火车上的女孩》！

媒体评论：
“贝尔的首部小说通过不同角色，让小说中的悬疑气氛步步高涨，每一件看似注定发生的行动，都令人毛骨悚然。”——《书单》

“这部惊悚小说充满许多不可见的小秘密、谎言和操纵。”——图书馆期刊

“一部精彩绝伦、布局出色，让人目不转睛的精彩小说，通过几位不可靠叙事者的观点切换，巧妙探讨妈咪间的暗潮汹涌、对婚姻生活不满足的代价，以及看似完美的郊区家庭生活，如何在这之下分崩离析。”——悬疑小说作家、《陌生的女儿》作者金伯莉·麦克奎格（Kimberly McCreight）

“一本风格独特又扣人心弦的心理惊悚小说……两个恐怖的妈妈，我一读就放不下来。”——热销书作家普拉姆·赛克斯（Plum Sykes）

Soon to be a major motion picture from Lionsgate starring Anna Kendrick, Blake Lively and Henry Golding, and directed by Paul Feig
She’s your best friend.
She knows all your secrets.
That’s why she’s so dangerous.
A single mother's life is turned upside down when her best friend vanishes in this chilling debut thriller in the vein of Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train.
It starts with a simple favor—an ordinary kindness mothers do for one another. When her best friend, Emily, asks Stephanie to pick up her son Nicky after school, she happily says yes. Nicky and her son, Miles, are classmates and best friends, and the five-year-olds love being together—just like she and Emily. A widow and stay-at-home mommy blogger living in woodsy suburban Connecticut, Stephanie was lonely until she met Emily, a sophisticated PR executive whose job in Manhattan demands so much of her time.
But Emily doesn’t come back. She doesn’t answer calls or return texts. Stephanie knows something is terribly wrong—Emily would never leave Nicky, no matter what the police say. Terrified, she reaches out to her blog readers for help. She also reaches out to Emily’s husband, the handsome, reticent Sean, offering emotional support. It’s the least she can do for her best friend. Then, she and Sean receive shocking news. Emily is dead. The nightmare of her disappearance is over.
Or is it? Because soon, Stephanie will begin to see that nothing—not friendship, love, or even an ordinary favor—is as simple as it seems.
A Simple Favor is a remarkable tale of psychological suspense—a clever and twisting free-fall of a ride filled with betrayals and reversals, twists and turns, secrets and revelations, love and loyalty, murder and revenge. Darcey Bell masterfully ratchets up the tension in a taut, unsettling, and completely absorbing story that holds you in its grip until the final page.

Review
"Bell's edgy first novel is chock-full of dirty little secrets, lies, and manipulations. Gone Girl devotees should reserve an advance copy and carve out uninterrupted time for this juicy read."--Library Journal

"Sly, satirical, subversive: a deliciously poisoned cupcake of a story."--L. S. Hilton, author of Maestra

"No one and nothing is what it seems in this page-turner."--Cleveland Plain Dealer

"An intense, captivating, and astonishing thriller ending in an unforeseen and surprise ending; the premise: Be careful who you trust."--New York Journal of Books

"Debut-novelist Bell ramps up suspense with authority in this domestic thriller, in which actions seem as inevitable as they are chilling. The audience that made GONE GIRL a publishing sensation is likely to take to this one, too."--Booklist (starred review)

"A Simple Favor by Darcey Bell is a highly recommended, twisty domestic thriller...My rating kept going up as I was reading. The ending was pitch-perfect."--She Treads Softly

“我们恐怕得是一辈子得好朋友了，毕竟你知道太多我的秘密……”

斯蒂芬妮接到好友艾米丽的电话，请她帮忙照看儿子。对斯蒂芬妮而言，这只是举手之劳，可谁知艾米丽就此人间蒸发。

在寻找艾米丽的过程中，斯蒂芬妮和艾米丽的丈夫肖恩相互帮助，渐生情愫，但他们无法确定艾米丽的生死，更不知能否跨过那条界限。直至警方在湖边发现一具女尸，通过DNA检测证实为艾米丽……

随着女尸的出现，那些黑暗的秘密、对人心的控制和对彼此的欺瞒逐渐显露。斯蒂芬妮的内心被不堪的过往折磨；肖恩无法相信妻子自杀；至于艾米丽，究竟遭遇了什么不测，还是另有原因让她放弃了完美家庭与人生？

秘密可以让人如此亲密，也可以让人身处险境。

举手之劳，如导火索般让事态一发不可收拾，将三人命运紧紧绑在一起，成为一生都无法逃脱的“牢”。

达西·贝尔（Darcey Bell），1981年出生，在美国爱达荷州西部的一处农场长大，目前在芝加哥的幼儿园任教。《举手之牢》是她的处女作。

Darcey Bell was born in 1981 and raised on a dairy farm in western Iowa. She is a preschool teacher in Chicago. A Simple Favor is her first novel.

Hi, moms!
This is going to be different from any post so far. Not more important, since all the things that happen with our kids, their frowns and smiles, their first steps and first words, are the most important things in the world.
Let’s just say this post is… MORE URGENT. Way more urgent.
My best friend has disappeared. She’s been gone for two days. Her name is Emily Nelson. As you know, I don’t ever name friends on my blog. But now, for reasons you’ll soon understand, I’m (temporarily) suspending my strict anonymity policy.
My son, Miles, and Emily’s son, Nicky, are best friends. They’re five. They were born in April, so they both started school a few months later and are a little older than the other kids in their class. I’d say more mature. Miles and Nicky are everything you’d want your child to be. Decent, honest, kind little people, qualities that—sorry, guys, if any guys are reading this—are not as common in boys.
The boys found each other in public school. Emily and I met picking them up after school. It’s rare that kids become friends with their moms’ friends’ kids, or that moms become friends with their kids’ friends’ moms. But this time it clicked. Emily and I were lucky. For one thing, we’re not the youngest moms. We had kids in our midthirties, when our mom clocks were ticking away!
Sometimes Miles and Nicky make up plays and act in them. I let the boys film them on my phone, though I’m usually careful about how much time I let the kids spend on the electronic devices that make modem parenting such a challenge. One amazing skit they did was a detective story, “The Adventures of Dick Unique. Nicky was the detective; Miles, the criminal.
Nicky said, “I’m Dick Unique, the world’s smartest detective.”
Miles said, “I am Miles Mandible, the world’s most evil criminal.” Miles played it like a villain in a Victorian melodrama, with lots of deep ho ho hos. They chased each other around our yard, pretending to shoot each other (no guns!) with their fingers. It was awesome.
I only wished that Miles’s dad—my late husband, Davis—could have been here to see it!