Book Review: One Wrong Word by Hank Phillippi Ryan

Hank Phillippi Ryan is that rare person who holds the distinction of being highly decorated in two separate professions, both of which draw on her keen storytelling sensibilities. As an investigative reporter, she has won 37 Emmy Awards and myriad other accolades. As an author, she has received five Agathas, five Anthonys, and the prestigious Mary Higgins Clark Award (among others) and has seen her name grace the USA Today bestseller list. Ryan has written nine books across two series (the Charlotte McNally mysteries and the Jane Ryland thrillers) and six standalone novels, the newest of which is February’s One Wrong Word.

His name is Ned Bannister, but they call him “The Parking Garage Killer.” Recently acquitted of accidentally (and possibly drunkenly) running down a skateboarder in a private parking structure, Bannister—a prominent Boston businessman—may have prevailed in a court of law but the court of public opinion has rendered a different verdict. Besieged by the press, abandoned by their friends, and pilloried on social media (where his acquittal has inspired the trending hashtag #Skated), the Bannisters—Ned, his wife, Cordelia, and their two young children—haven’t gotten a moment’s peace since emerging victorious. Reputation in tatters, there’s only one place left to turn: the Vision Group.

Crisis management expert Arden Ward has built her brand on resuscitating the images and careers of the downfallen, whose lives and livelihoods have been threatened by missteps and misspeaks. It’s perhaps the ultimate irony, then, when her boss, Warren Carmichael, fires her for being the innocent victim of a rumor alleging an affair with a married, mega-rich company client. To allow Arden to save face, he offers to frame her exit as voluntary in exchange for her taking one last client (and payout): Cordelia Bannister. With little choice but to accept this proposition, Arden unexpectedly finds herself a participant in a deadly liaison in which nothing is as it seems. 

In an authorial first, Ryan tells the story through three perspectives—Arden’s, Cordelia’s, and failed prosecutor Monelle Churchwood’s. This approach highlights each woman’s fall from grace and fight for redemption. Moreover, the narrative—which maintains immediacy by staying in the present-day through the use of remembrances and reminisces rather than flashbacks—calls into question every assumption and seeming fact of the Bannister case. When somebody intimately acquainted with the trial is brazenly struck down in the road, the police and the District Attorney’s office are once again looking at Ned Bannister for the crime. And while Arden wants to prevent a miscarriage of justice at all costs, she can’t help wondering if she’s protecting a guilty man. Finding the truth may just be the death of her.

Hank Phillippi Ryan is no stranger to capturing what’s in the collective zeitgeist. Here, she draws on the pervasive influence of cancel culture to examine how lives can be destroyed by the whims of the public (or maybe a more private agenda). The story unfolds as if the author is traveling without a road map (fittingly, Ryan is a self-professed “pantser,” meaning she writes by the seat of her pants) and, as a result, the final destination is more of a promise than a predetermined outcome. But the path there is replete with twists, turns, and treachery, meaning One Wrong Word hits a lot of the right touchstones along the way.