Freya Faith is the long-time star of a police procedural called Scene of the Crime, and she uses her experiences on the set to help solve a murder in my latest novel What Happened Next. Freya got her start in the nineties on a New York-based soap opera called Eternal Flame. Here, we visit her as she attends a fan event at a mall in Westchester during the height of her soap stardom!

Fame isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, especially on days like today when it turns out the car service is overbooked so I have to rent a car to get to a fan event at a mall outside of Albany. I arrive with minutes to spare, find a spot in a sea of cars similar to this one, and rush inside to where some of my castmates have gathered by the fountain for a fan meet and greet.

My name’s Freya Faith, and I play Brenda Jackson – the town whore with a heart of gold – on Eternal Flame, which airs at 2 p.m. every afternoon in most markets. Right now, Brenda’s two timing her mobster boyfriend and running a scam with a Midge McArdle, so I’m not surprised that the first pair of fans, two older women who must be sisters, tell me to watch myself. “Carlos doesn’t put with that kind of behavior,” one of the women says, as I scrawl my name across a headshot and tell her how great it is to meet her. “And watch out for Midge. She doesn’t think about anyone but herself.”

“Ask Tony about that,” the other woman says, eyebrow raised. “Ask him.”

I can’t ask Tony about Midge, because I happen to know that Tony McArdle is Midge’s fourth husband. He died under suspicious circumstances… in 1972, which is over fifteen years. Midge has been married three times since then, but these fans have long memories.

“Great look,” the next person says, a man who waves his hands over my whole ensemble.

My red hair’s been teased a mile high, and my blouse is bigger and blocker than I’d like it to be, but this is the look fans have come to expect from Brenda.

My line is the longest, which my co-stars note as they close up shop and head back to the city. Tomorrow we’ll be on set together, and I may be having a moment right now – three covers on Soap Opera Guide in the last six months – but we’ll keep in professional. Everyone’s family at Eternal Flame.

When I return to the parking lot and finally manage to find my car, someone’s left a note on the windshield that reads, Nice to meet you. You look great in green! and I wonder if the man who liked my ensemble left it. I tuck the note into my pocket and make my way toward the parkway, but somehow have the feeling that I’m being followed, enough so that when I see a state cop I pull over and ask him to stay with me for a few moments. “I must have imagined it,” I eventually tell him before getting back on the road.

It’s only then that I realize that whoever left the note had to have seen me arrive at the mall. They were either waiting for me, or they followed me there, and the thought of it sends a chill down my back.

Like I told you, fame isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

WHAT HAPPENED NEXT
Genre: Psychological Thriller
Release: April 2026
Format: Digital, Print, Audio
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Bookshop.org

A young man investigating his father’s crimes is determined to uncover the truth in a gripping novel of suspense about family secrets, betrayal, and the weight of the past.

What do I remember about the murder on the lake?

Charlie Kilgore was too young to remember anything, really, about how events on the lake unfolded twenty-five years ago. He just knows what he’s been told: that his father stabbed a man to death, left Charlie’s mother critically wounded, and then disappeared, never to be seen again. Now Charlie believes there must be more to what happened.

Using the shards of the story he’s uncovered so far as the heart of a true crime podcast, Charlie returns to his hometown in the foothills of New Hampshire’s White Mountains. Old friends, family, authorities, and even collateral victims have moved on, and no one wants to dredge up what’s long forgotten. Except Charlie. He wants to know what could have transformed a quiet man into a monster. And what happened next.

But when Charlie starts asking questions of people with so much to hide, getting to the truth becomes dangerous. Because on this lake—in this family—the past isn’t dead and buried at all. In fact, it’s back with a vengeance.

About the author
Edwin Hill is the best-selling author of six critically acclaimed crime novels, including the standalone thrillers What Happened Next, Who to Believe, and The Secrets We Share, and three novels featuring Harvard librarian Hester Thursby. He has been nominated for Edgar and Agatha Awards, received starred reviews in Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, Booklist, and Library Journal, and was recognized as one of “Six Crime Writers to Watch” in Mystery Scene magazine. He lives in Roslindale, Massachusetts with his partner Michael and his favorite reviewer, their lab Edith Ann, who likes his first drafts enough to eat them.