Book Summary and Reviews of El Dorado Drive by Megan Abbott

El Dorado Drive by Megan Abbott

El Dorado Drive

by Megan Abbott

  • Publishes:
  • Jun 24, 2025, 368 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Turnout comes a simmering, atmospheric novel of friendship and betrayal, following a women-led pyramid scheme in suburban Detroit.

All I want is to be innocent again. But that's not how it works. Especially not after the Wheel.

The three Bishop sisters grew up in privilege in the moneyed suburbs of Detroit. But as the auto industry declined, so did their fortunes. Harper, the youngest, is barely making ends meet when her beloved, charismatic sister Pam—currently in the middle of a contentious battle with her ex-husband—and her eldest sister, Debra, approach her about joining an exciting new club.

The Wheel offers women like themselves—middle-aged and of declining means—a way to make their own money, independent of husbands or families. Quickly, however, the Wheel's success, and their own addiction to it, leads to greater and greater risks—and a crime so shocking it threatens to bring everything down with it.

Megan Abbott turns her keen eye toward women and money in El Dorado Drive, a riveting story about power, vulnerability, and how desperation draws out our most destructive impulses.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Abbott is one of the reigning queens of suspense and her latest promises to be another dark knockout." —Lit Hub

"Megan is the reigning queen of feminist neo-noir that's equal parts brainy and suspenseful, and every single time she publishes a new novel it's an occasion." —The Maris Review

"As surprising and electrifying as a summer storm, El Dorado Drive deftly examines hope, need, greed and the complicated angles of sisterhood. It is suspenseful, beautifully written and, quite simply, exquisite." —Gillian Flynn, New York Times bestselling author of Gone Girl

"Tense, chilling and beautifully written, El Dorado Drive is an absolute knockout." —Harlan Coben, author of Think Twice

"El Dorado Drive is a dizzying ephemeral journey where Megan Abbott confirms what many of us already knew. She is one the finest writers to ever put pen to paper in the crime genre. A rare tour de force." —S.A. Cosby, author of My Darkest Prayer

This information about El Dorado Drive was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

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More Information

Megan Abbott is the Edgar award-winning author of eleven crime novels, including You Will Know Me, Give Me Your Hand and the New York Times bestseller The Turnout, the winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. She received her Ph.D. in English and American literature from New York University and her writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Guardian, the Paris Review and the Wall Street Journal. Dare Me, the series she adapted from her own novel, now streaming on Netflix. Her latest novel, Beware the Woman, is now in paperback.

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