Chris Bohjalian is a true literary chameleon. His outstanding books expertly cross over into many different genres, and his latest effort is no exception. THE AMATEUR features a character study as complex as anything on the market this year. At the heart of this tragic tale is a horrendous incident that takes the life of a teenager and the lifelong impact it will have on the young woman at the center of it.

Much of the novel will have readers wondering if 18-year-old Mira Winston is the innocent victim she claims to be, or if she is a self-centered and driven individual seeking both personal success and lurid pleasure at any cost. What works so well here is how Bohjalian presents the facts of the story and saves the big reveal for the very end. He dares you to make up your mind before the payoff either supports or blows up any ideas you may have had about what really happened on that fateful day at the Tallmadge Country Club golf course in Westchester County, New York.

"Mira’s plight is worthy of any tragic female protagonist from classic literature, and I strongly believe this will be not only an award winner when the dust settles on 2026, but also one of the high points of Bohjalian’s career."

The book's first line kind of states it all: “It is neither virtue nor might that rules the world; it’s luck.” Readers will learn that this could be a statement regarding Mira’s own fate with the stunning allegations made against her, or a commentary on an amateur female golfer with dreams of going pro in a sport dominated by reckless, manipulative men.

One day during the summer of 1978, before she is set to head off to Yale to pursue both an education and a golf scholarship, Mira is taking practice shots at the net that is set up at Tallmadge. One of the balls find its way through a small hole in the mesh. It strikes her classmate, club caddie Kenny Foster, in the head and kills him instantly. It appears to have been an unpreventable accident. However, the Foster family will pursue lawsuits against both the country club and the manufacturer of the net. It seems like a hollow yet necessary act to attempt to bring them closure. That is, until we learn that the target on the net was removed prior to Mira’s practice shots.

Mira fully denies having anything to do with this, but when the police search her family’s home, they find the missing target shoved inside her golf bag. Her father, an attorney, immediately hires her a reputable defense counselor as the Fosters turn their rage towards Mira in a criminal case where she must fight for her life. Of course, she won’t make any friends with heartsick readers who wish to staunchly defend her when it comes to light that she has been having an affair with a man her father’s age since she was 15. There are more than a few LOLITA moments and references tied to this relationship, as well as a really poignant tattoo.

We get to see modern-day Mira, not the 18-year-old from the late 1970s, as she is now a popular novelist. However, we do not learn her fate from the trial until the very end of the book. Along the way,  Mira's life spirals as she spurns Yale and a golf career in exchange for more empty affairs and plenty of drugs and alcohol. She eventually finds a nice guy who believes in her, but she already has paid a high price for events out of her control that have changed the trajectory of her life and impacted everyone around her.

THE AMATEUR is a stunning, addictive novel, and Chris Bohjalian is a masterful plotter and wordsmith. Mira’s plight is worthy of any tragic female protagonist from classic literature, and I strongly believe this will be not only an award winner when the dust settles on 2026, but also one of the high points of Bohjalian’s career.