From the bestselling author of Look Closer comes a new domestic thriller about betrayal and murder inside one twisted family.
Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Keep Them Close by David Ellis, which releases on June 30th 2026.
Two siblings. One murder. So many lies.
Siblings Allison and Luke have been through a lot together. They’ve always stood by each other. They’d do anything for each other.
Or so it seems.
When Allison’s husband, Finley, is murdered, the investigation threatens to expose the siblings’ darkest secrets. An illicit affair. A decades-old accident. A stunning deception. How do these events explain Finley’s death? How far will Allison and Luke go to keep their secrets buried? And can the siblings even trust one another anymore?
As the investigation winds tighter and past and present collide, the most shocking betrayal might lie a little too close to home…
EXCERPT
Allison
I shouldn’t be here. I have no good reason. I pride myself on discipline, on focus, on planning, yet here I am, parked down the street from Anna’s house past 10 pm, knowing that I probably won’t do a single thing but flirt with the idea of doing something very, very bad, then turn around and drive home. I’ll inch right up to the line, get myself in position, heart racing—but then I’ll retreat, deciding it’s not worth the risk, even patting myself on the back for being the bigger person. Which, naturally, will just make me more pathetic, my humiliation more complete. Hooray for me, I’m the noble one, choosing the high road, take that, Anna, while you’re up in your bedroom with your legs spread wide and my husband’s face between them.
For some reason I can’t quite understand, it feels good to approach the line. To know that I could do it, that I could get away with it, too. Especially after the precautions I’ve taken.
Like dressing in all black. Black turtleneck, black gloves, black denim jeans, black footwear.
Like unscrewing my front license plate, so any ALPRs—license-plate cameras—would be unable to record my vehicle passing and thus place me at a particular location at a particular date and time.
Like leaving my cell phone at home. I considered keeping it with me but turning it off, just like he does every time he visits Anna’s house here on Palomino Drive, just in case his loving wife might do something like, say, try to locate him? I ran through the calculus and decided that having my phone turned off in the middle of the evening would, itself, look suspicious.
We’ve reviewed your phone records going back years, Mrs. Brice, and we’ve never seen a single instance where you happened to turn off your phone for a period of hours in the middle of the evening. Any particular reason that would happen for the first time on Wednesday, June 11, 2025? The same night your husband, Finley, and his mistress, Anna Cortese, were found dead in a bloody heap at Mrs. Cortese’s home on Palomino Drive?
So no, the phone stayed home, powered on. And the bonus: it continues to ping cell towers every so often, placing me at my residence the entire evening.
As long as the police don’t pull me over for a missing front license plate, a possibility I consider remote, I could do this. I could absolutely do this. Find a way into the house? Got that covered. I know the code to the Corteses’ garage-door pad. From the garage (where Finley’s car is parked, by the way) I could enter the home. If I time my entry to coincide with a moment of peak intimacy, if I step in while, I dunno, Finley’s on all fours with a ball-gag in his mouth, they might not even hear me.
True, there would be reason to suspect me. The aggrieved wife? Check. A former longtime prosecutor who knows the ins and outs of police investigation and would know how to cover her tracks? Yup.
Still, prove I did it. Place me at the scene. You can’t. Show me what gun I used. You can’t, because I have an untraceable one. Find gunshot residue on me? Please, the gun will be wrapped in a clear plastic bag. And I’m wearing a long-sleeved turtleneck sweater and running gloves, nimble enough to manipulate but nevertheless covering my hands and wrists. Plus I’ll scrub myself clean and toss these clothes before anyone even knows the loving couple is dead.
Hell, prove that I even knew he was stepping out on me. You can’t. There are only two people who know that I know. My private investigator, Harp, for one, but nothing connects me to her. For personal matters like this, I pay in cash and text her on a burner phone. The other person who knows is my brother, Luke, who would never in a million years give me up.
I blow out a breath. It matters, I guess, that I could get away with this yet choose not to do so. It provides at least some twisted sense of empowerment: I could hurt you if I really, really wanted to; lucky you, I don’t want to. Regardless, sitting here now, ready and able, I know I won’t go through with it. I won’t kill my husband or Anna.
I might set fire to her house, though.
