I'll Walk Alone: A Novel — Identity theft with a side of sluggish panic

"But that's me. That's me taking Matthew."

I stopped dead on the path near Foster Beach when Zan Moreland said those words—or rather, when Jan Maxwell whispered them into my earbuds. The wind off Lake Michigan was doing its best to freeze my ears, but the chill came from the audio. Imagine seeing a photo of yourself kidnapping your own missing child. It's the kind of identity-dissolving horror that usually belongs in a Kafka novel, not a drugstore paperback.

I picked this up because sometimes, after a week of trying to explain the green light in *Gatsby* to thirty teenagers who are only interested in the green light of a notification screen, my brain needs a break. I need plot. I need clear villains. I need the "Queen of Suspense."

Here's the thing about audiobooks that my students don't get: the narrator is the final editor. Jan Maxwell has a voice like expensive velvet. It's undeniably "mellifluous"—a word I make my AP students learn and then never use. But in a thriller? Risky choice.

There were moments, specifically when Zan is being hounded by the press or her vindictive business rival, where Maxwell's delivery felt too... composed. Too theatrical. She reads with the precise, deliberate pacing of a stage actor projecting to the back row, rather than the frantic, breathless internal monologue of a mother whose life is imploding. Maxwell brings that same measured, theatrical quality to All Dressed in White, and there it works better—the cold-case mystery format gives her composure somewhere to live. I found myself checking my phone to see if I'd accidentally bumped the speed down to 0.75x. I hadn't. She just reads that slowly.

The plot itself is classic Mary Higgins Clark—improbable, twisty, and centered on a woman who is beautiful, talented, and suffering immensely. The identity theft angle hits a primal nerve. We all fear losing our data; Zan is losing her actual self. But the pacing struggles. There's a middle section, around hour five, where the investigation circles the drain. If I were reading the physical book, I would've skimmed. With audio, you're trapped in the car (or in my case, freezing on the lakefront), forced to endure every lethargic sentence.

My mom, the loyal listener of my podcast, would absolutely adore this production. She'd call Maxwell's voice "soothing." And maybe that's the point. It's a cozy nightmare—murder and kidnapping wrapped in a cashmere blanket. If you want suspense that lets you relax into it, this is your book. But if you need your thrillers to actually feel thrilling? You might find yourself, like me, cranking it to 1.25x just to give the kidnapping plot the urgency it deserved.

Principal Martinez, if you're asking, this is definitely what I was doing instead of grading the sophomore essays on *Lord of the Flies*. The irony of swapping one story about lost children for another isn't lost on me.