This Story Might Save Your Life

A podcaster’s disappearance casts suspicion on her secretly besotted best friend and business partner in Crum’s dynamite debut. Joy Moore and Benny Abbott have been BFFs for 13 years, the last four of which they’ve cohosted a chart-topping “comedy survival” podcast about people’s near-death experiences. The pair has spent months negotiating a lucrative distribution deal, so it’s a shock when Joy invites Benny over one evening and announces she needs a break from the show. She promises to explain why later, but when Benny returns the next morning, Joy and her husband are gone. A window is broken, the couple’s dog is loose, and they’re not answering their respective phones, so Benny calls 911. The LAPD suspect that an angry or jealous Benny committed foul play, so he launches his own investigation. As he soon discovers, however, he’s not the only one keeping secrets. Crum skillfully intercuts Benny’s narration with draft chapters from Joy’s memoir-in-progress, heightening suspense while gradually establishing that Benny’s unspoken love for Joy is reciprocal. By turns hilarious, harrowing, heartbreaking, and profound, Crum’s mystery ticks every box. It’s a triumph. Agent: Stefanie Lieberman, Janklow & Nesbit Assoc. (Mar.)