The Opportunist

The Opportunist is a hard-to-put-down thriller filled with twists and a gaggle of potential culprits from a dysfunctional family who aren't overly likeable but are oh-so-intriguing. Their lives are filled with wealth, privilege, and secrets which some members will do anything to keep hidden.

Set in a secluded, private island off the coast of Vancouver, the story focuses on Alana, the estranged daughter of the wealthy Shropshire family who has purposely spent decades away from her family. When her brothers enlist her help to put the kibosh on their father's impending wedding to his decades younger former personal nurse, Alana is pulled back into the family and all its emotional baggage and secrets.

This is a story filled with suspicion, secrets, and lies which pile up as the body count climbs and readers are faced with trying to figure out the identity of the murderer. The author pulls the reader into her story and deftly reveals the secrets and deceptions of her characters which kept me second-guessing and ultimately surprised me with the final twist. Well done, Ms. Friedman. Well done!

This is a delightfully dark and twisty story about estrangement, rivalry, power, and greed that was hard to put down, clever, and entertaining. Before beginning this book, I didn't realize Elyse Friedman was Canadian, and a Torontonian t'boot! This was a pleasant surprise to this Canuck who is eager to read more from this new-to-me author.

Note: The story includes a disturbing subject that is one I try to avoid in the books I read. If you want to see trigger warnings, you'll find them after the book description at the bottom of this review.

Disclaimer: My sincere thanks to MIRA for the advanced digital copy they provided me in exchange for my honest review.

My Rating: 4.5 stars

Author: Elyse Friedman

Genre: Suspense, Canadian

Type and Source: eBook from publisher via NetGalley

Publisher: MIRA (HarperCollins)

First Published: December 6, 2022

Book Description from GoodReads: A deliciously sly, compulsively readable tale about greed, power and the world’s most devious family.

When Alana Shropshire’s seventy-six-year-old father, Ed, starts dating Kelly, his twenty-eight-year-old nurse, a flurry of messages arrive from Alana’s brothers, urging her to help “protect Dad” from the young interloper. Alana knows that what Teddy and Martin really want to protect is their father’s fortune, and she tells them she couldn’t care less about the May–December romance. Long estranged from her privileged family, Alana, a hardworking single mom, has more important things to worry about.

But when Ed and Kelly’s wedding is announced, Teddy and Martin kick into hyperdrive and persuade Alana to fly to their father’s West Coast island retreat to perform one simple task in their plan to make the gold digger go away. Kelly, however, proves a lot more wily than expected, and Alana becomes entangled in an increasingly dangerous scheme full of secrets and surprises. Just how far will her siblings go to retain control?

Smart, entertaining and brimming with shocking twists and turns, The Opportunist is both a thrill ride of a story and a razor-sharp view of who wields power in the world.

Trigger Warning: Child sexual abuse