I started What Have You Done on a Sunday afternoon when the weather had turned gray and staying inside felt inevitable. Shari Lapena has built a career on exactly this kind of afternoon, and I went in knowing that. The Couple Next Door is one of the more effective domestic thrillers I have heard in recent years, and I was curious whether she could recreate that specific pressure-cooker quality in a small-town setting rather than a suburban one. The answer is: mostly yes, with a significant caveat.
The setup is efficient and well-chosen. Fairhill, Vermont is exactly the kind of town where everyone knows everyone, front doors stay unlocked, and the high school social hierarchy still operates with the quiet cruelty of a closed ecosystem. Diana Brewer, a popular girl discovered in a hayfield circled by vultures, is the inciting event, and Lapena makes good use of the way a murder transforms a community from the first chapter onward. Curtains begin to twitch. Trust dissolves. Everyone becomes a suspect, and because Lapena distributes her narration across multiple perspectives, the reader gets the disorienting experience of watching the same events refract through different kinds of denial.
What We Made of It
The novel's sharpest section involves the parents of a boyfriend who becomes a suspect. Reviewer Melanie described it as "like a punch to the gut," and I agree. Lapena is at her best when she puts ordinary people in impossible positions and refuses to let them off the hook. The inner turmoil of a parent who genuinely does not know if their child is capable of violence is psychologically precise in a way that the ghost story elements simply are not. Those elements, the teenagers telling ghost stories in a graveyard, the way the supernatural is introduced and then half-abandoned, read as a miscalculation. They are tonally mismatched with the forensic, character-driven suspense Lapena does well, and they contribute to a third act that several readers found deflating.
Reviewer JT Atlanta, a self-identified longtime Lapena fan, put the criticism plainly: the ghost component was "beneath her," and the lack of character development for the central teenage boy undermined the payoff. I found myself sharing that frustration. Lapena's signature is the slow revelation of what people are hiding in plain sight, and when the mechanics of her mystery require a character to remain opaque rather than complexly revealed, the method works against the material.
January LaVoy is a reliable narrator for this genre, and she handles the multi-POV structure cleanly. Lapena chapters tend to be short, and LaVoy understands that the rhythm of the prose is part of what creates tension. She does not over-dramatize, which is the right call. Domestic suspense lives and dies on what is left unspoken, and LaVoy has the discipline to let the silences work. At just under nine hours, the audiobook is the right length for the story being told, and the Vermont setting translates to audio with a particular quality of isolation that suits the material.
For listeners who are new to Lapena, this is a reasonable introduction to her style, and the small-town mechanism will feel fresh compared to her earlier suburban settings. For longtime fans, this will read as a transitional book, one where she is testing new territory with uneven results but enough of her signature craft to sustain the listening experience.
What to Watch For in What Have You Done?
The ghost story thread is the main flag. It enters the narrative early enough that you might assume it will integrate meaningfully, but it does not fully pay off in the way genre conventions suggest it should. If supernatural elements in an otherwise realistic domestic thriller break your immersion, be aware that they are present here. The ending also drew criticism for losing momentum in its final stretch, which is a known Lapena vulnerability. She builds exceptional pressure and occasionally releases it too quickly or without sufficient payoff for the investment made.
There is also a notable absence of deep characterization for several key figures. The teenage boy at the center of the investigation, whose interiority would have grounded the mystery, remains frustratingly surface-level. Lapena's structure keeps him at arm's length in a way that feels like a craft decision rather than an accident, but it is a decision that costs the emotional resolution something significant.
Best Suited For
Readers who enjoy Lapena's established style and want more of the same small-town suspense will find this satisfying, ghost subplot aside. Fans of domestic thriller as a genre who have not encountered her before will find a competent and often effective example of what the form can do. Skip it if you need fully developed characters at the center of your mystery, or if tonal inconsistency in suspense fiction frustrates you.
A Few Questions About What Have You Done?
Is What Have You Done a standalone novel, or does it connect to Lapena's other books?
It is completely standalone. No prior knowledge of Lapena's work is required, and it does not share characters or settings with The Couple Next Door or her other novels.
How significant is the ghost or supernatural element, and does it resolve properly?
The ghost story thread is present throughout but does not integrate as fully as the setup implies. Several reviewers, including longtime Lapena fans, found it tonally mismatched with the realistic domestic suspense. It does not resolve in a way that satisfies the genre expectations it raises.
Does January LaVoy handle the multiple character perspectives clearly in the audio version?
Yes. LaVoy keeps the perspectives distinct without resorting to caricature. The short chapter structure that Lapena uses plays to LaVoy's strengths as a narrator, and the transitions between viewpoints are handled with clean professionalism.
How does What Have You Done compare to The Couple Next Door for listeners familiar with that book?
Most reviewers rate The Couple Next Door higher. What Have You Done expands the setting from suburban to small-town and introduces more viewpoints, but the character development is thinner and the ending less satisfying. Consider it a worthwhile Lapena title but not her strongest entry.
