If I Die Tonight

If I Die Tonight (2018), a thriller by Alison Gaylin, follows what happens when a seemingly straightforward hit-and-run in a small town turns into a sinister murder investigation. The book received overwhelmingly positive reviews upon publication, and it won the 2019 Edgar Award for Best Paperback Original. Gaylin is a bestselling writer of thriller, mystery, and suspense novels. Before writing fiction full-time, Gaylin worked as an arts and entertainment journalist for fifteen years.

If I Die Tonight is set in Havenkill, Hudson Valley. Seventeen-year-old Wade Reed is a quiet and introverted boy. He doesn’t have many friends, and he only wears black clothes. His mother, Jackie, worries about him, but she doesn’t know how to get through to a teenage boy.

A divorcee, Jackie struggles to make ends meet. She smokes a lot because she is under so much pressure. It is not easy looking after Wade and his younger brother, Connor, on her own. Her husband, Bill, ran away with a younger woman, and he doesn’t see his sons. Despite Bill’s bad parenting, Jackie sometimes worries that she is a bad mother.



One night, Jackie wakes up in the darkness with a fright. She realizes that Wade isn’t in his bed. She looks around the house and finds him outside, smoking one of her cigarettes. She is angry, but she decides to go back to sleep and pretend she didn’t see anything. Wade doesn’t cope well with confrontation.

The next day, the town wakes up to shocking news. A local boy, Liam Miller, suffered critical injuries in a hit-and-run. It turns out that he tried to stop someone from stealing a car, and the perpetrator beat him before running him over. Liam is a popular and extroverted boy with many friends, and the whole town rallies around him.

Jackie wonders how Wade is coping with the news because he is in Liam’s class. They also used to play Little League together. Wade doesn’t seem too bothered by Liam’s accident, which is why she’s shocked to discover that he is the first person who visits Liam in the hospital after his family.



Wade won’t talk to Jackie about the hospital visit, but it is obvious that something went wrong. Other well-wishers escorted Wade from the room because they heard shouting and tense language. Jackie hears about this from her friends and she plans to confront Wade about it.

Meanwhile, Liam dies. All everyone cares about is finding out who killed him. Wade becomes increasingly withdrawn, even more so than usual, and Jackie cannot help wondering if he is somehow responsible. She doesn’t know where Wade went after he smoked the cigarette, and she’s worried that he hurt Liam.

Jackie keeps these thoughts to herself while she defends Wade from everyone else. The school blames Wade because he is shy and he doesn’t talk to anyone. Jackie asks Connor what he thinks about Wade and his possible involvement with the murder, but Connor won’t talk. Even if he knows the truth, he won’t rat out his brother.



In the meantime, the authorities consider another suspect, Aimee En. She claims that someone tried to steal her car. Liam intervened and the perpetrator ran him over. Although some police officers believe her, others doubt her story. Aimee is a performer who loves being the center of attention, and this could be another ploy to get herself into the limelight. Aimee latches onto Jackie because no one else will listen to her.

The town piles pressure on Wade to confess to the crime. Wade refuses but he doesn’t fight the charges, either. In the meantime, Connor feels abandoned by both Wade and Jackie. No one pays any attention to him anymore because they are all so consumed by this murder investigation. He gets in with a bad crowd and it is only a matter of time before he ends up in serious trouble.

Everything goes from bad to worse for Jackie’s family. Connor ends up involved in a shootout with other teenage boys. He is seriously wounded, and everyone worries he might die. He survives, and Jackie demands to know what happened. Connor was just trying to protect Wade from the people bullying him.



Jackie confronts Wade about the murder. She is determined to resolve this once and for all. Wade didn’t run Liam over. Jackie wants to know why he doesn’t fight the accusations, and he explains there’s a compelling reason. Wade is sneaking out of the house at night because he sleeps over at Helen’s house.

Helen is Jackie’s best friend and twice Wade’s age. Jackie is horrified, but she decides to use this as an opportunity to bring her broken family together again. In If I Die Tonight, who ran over Liam is less important than healing town divisions. The characters all acknowledge their own shortcomings and vow to work on their problems.