What Happened That Night
Deanne Cameron
Publisher: Wattpad Books
Published: September 2019
Language: English
Pages: 328, Paperback

Don’t judge a book by its cover, they said. But I think I will continue doing so, especially when it’s an author I haven’t read before. Because that’s how I picked up ‘What Happened That Night’ by Deanne Cameron. The cover is eerie—with a barn of sorts partly hidden by leafless trees—and I just felt like there was a good story there. I wasn’t wrong.

Initially posted on Wattpad in 2015, What Happened That Night starts with a murder. Griffin Tomlin, Clara Porterfield’s neighbor and the boy she had been secretly crushing on for years, has been found dead, floating in the swimming pool in his backyard. Next thing you know, Clara’s sister, Emily, is awaiting trial for Griffin’s murder. During his funeral, Emily tells Clara that she killed Griffin for her and that now he can no longer hurt her.

You understand there’s a secret there and that Griffin wasn’t the golden boy the entire neighborhood as well as his school thought him to be. In fact, no one—not even Clara—is as they appear and that’s how the story becomes even more interesting. You are not only trying to unearth the mystery surrounding Griffin’s murder but also slowing untangling the knots that make each character.

The novel shuffles back and forth between the present day and the events prior to Griffin’s murder as Cameron weaves a narrative that keeps you guessing what must have happened that night up until the very end. For someone who has been able to predict how most thriller novels end for quite a while now, that was a surprise.

What I liked about What Happened That Night is that the characters, unlike in most thriller novels, aren’t black or white but a shade of grey—just like in real life. And Cameron is really skilled at bringing in twists and turns just when you least anticipate it. You almost make up your mind about something or someone when the complete opposite seems to be true, and that keeps happening again and again till you don’t know what to think anymore.

It could have all been confusing and chaotic but Cameron, who’s been writing and posting on Wattpad since she was 16, knows what she’s doing and is crystal clear about her characters and where her story is headed. If you enjoy a good murder mystery then you definitely don’t want to miss out on What Happened That Night.