The Visitor

Izzie Mallon intends to spend her first Christmas without her husband, Sam, who died in an accident months earlier, at home alone in an alcoholic haze, while telling friends and family she’s gone to a yoga retreat. Then a major snowstorm hits Dublin, and a man claiming to be Sam’s best mate, Eli Sanders, turns up when flights are canceled and he can’t get home to New York. Izzie feels obligated to invite him to stay. Only ten-year-old Noah Brady, who lives with his widowed father, Tom, in the apartment below Izzie’s, questions Eli’s identity because any one of Sam’s friends would have had greater knowledge of the Star Wars movies. Readers will realize from the start that the visitor is up to no good, as Izzie’s neighbors eventually learn, and Miller ramps up tension amid flashbacks portraying the love that blossomed between Izzie and Sam, despite his warning that his life probably would be cut short.