This book had been pitched to me a long time ago, and I remember thinking at the time that it was a work of horror, or maybe even dystopian fiction (the eyes on the cover are creepy, no?). When Everybody Knows by Jordan Harper finally arrived on my doorstep, I realized it wasn’t any of these things, instead, it was a work of crime fiction, basically a noir due to its overwhelming darkness and cynicism. This isn’t a book to read if you’re feeling glum about the state of our society because it will only reinforce those feelings, but because it takes place in a world that very few can relate to or will ever experience, it could also act as escapism for some. I was left feeling very ambivalent about the book after finishing, but the plot did a good job of keeping the pages turning while I was in it.

Plot Summary

Mae works for a powerful PR firm in Los Angeles. Her clients are the rich and famous, and she specializes in spinning stories to their benefit. No matter the bad act or heinous comment, Mae can work with her contacts to ensure the reputational damage is eliminated, or at the very least, minimized. Chris is a ‘fist’, someone who is sent after people to beat them up and teach them a lesson. He was a crooked cop in L.A. before he took the fall for some fellow police officers, and is now hired out to commit violent acts to the highest bidder. Mae and Chris had worked together in the past and fallen in love, but split because of the dark worlds they both inhabited – both had to keep too many secrets to let another person in. But they find themselves once again working together when Mae’s boss is gunned down in an unexplained hit and run, and Mae becomes obsessed with finding out why. The people Chris work for want to keep the truth hidden about this crime, so when Chris discovers the connection to Mae, he decides to help her, even if it puts his job and life at risk. As they investigate, they discover a tangled web of blackmail, drug deals, and a human trafficking scheme that shocks even their hardened hearts. They are both forced with a new moral dilemma – do they eliminate their chances of ever working again and oust this despicable racket , or do they secretly control the narrative and take a cut for themselves?

My Thoughts

The female protagonist Mae is one of the few characters with a conscience, although she spends much of her time ignoring it. She admits that after hiding a particularly difficult story from the media for a client, she went out and adopted a dog as a way of cleansing her conscience. This dog seems to be the one good thing in her life outside of Chris, and when they rekindle what they had it’s a sign that they are growing, realizing there is happiness outside of their awful but well-paying jobs. It’s an interesting choice on the author’s part to complicate each character enough that they all have dark sides – no one is ‘good’ in this book, even the young victim they are trying to save has a potty mouth and a desire for getting rich and famous. It points to the darkness of the environment too; the star-obsessed world of Los Angeles makes it difficult to seek the simple things in life when it’s all about who you know, what you look like, and how much power you have. And power is at the center of this novel. People who have it are mostly hidden in the shadows, and those who want to appear as though they have power are put front and center as a distraction.

I haven’t read many books set in L.A., but this story focuses on all the bad parts of it: the homeless encampments, the never-ending traffic, and the smog. Chris and Mae rarely make it out to see the ocean, which for some reason, struck me as particularly sad, because when they did see the ocean, it made them happy, if only briefly. Mae’s perspective was well written, her character development seemed more in-depth, while Chris remained unknowable, unfortunately his inner voice didn’t seem all that different from Mae’s so it could have used some refining. Although I didn’t particularly like Mae, her cynicism appealed to me, and she kept the storyline moving quickly. She’s incredibly observant, one of my favourite quotes of hers came near the beginning of the book:

“A couple stands waiting for their own car — the woman has billows of blond hair framing her acid-peel face, her teeth like pearls between Joker-plump lips. Her husband stands like a sack of something wet, puffs of gray hair lifting his shirt, tangling out from the button gaps like prisoners grasping between bars. He looks the age the woman is not allowed to be.”

-p.43 of Everybody Knows by Jordan Harper

It’s a masculine book full of deceit, violence, and a desire for all things dark; great for taking a break from the everyday doldrums, but not a life I’d like to spend too long reading about.