True friends?. They are the kind of people you can pick up the phone at 3 am, tell them you need help, and they will JUST SHOW UP. No questions, you know you can count on them. That’s part of the premise of Kimberly McKreight’s Friends Like These, in which 5 long-time friends from college days at Vassar gather at a house in the Catskills for a “bachelor party” which is really an intervention…but I’m getting ahead of things here. 

Back in college, a group of friends had a shared tragedy in two parts: someone died when they were all together and, later, one of the group committed suicide. Coincidence? HA! Not in a Kimberly McKreight book! After college, the friends have mostly remained close, they have all stayed mostly in the Northeast, and all have had various challenges: Jonathan is fabulously wealthy (or at least his family is) but can’t quite break free from fear of Daddy’s disapproval, Kevin is an addict but still successful (or is he?), Maeve has apparently survived her very sad upbringing, and Stephanie is — well, she is still the golden girl, but still having to deal with the issues faced by any young, gorgeous female attorney. 

The storytelling jumps from one character to another, and at times, it’s not entirely clear who is “talking,” but we get to know this group well, and there are clues along the way to what really happened back then, and what is happening now. Despite everything they seem to have an unbreakable bond created through a shared tragedy.. As the weekend rolls on, we have  lies,, drugs, unrequited love, jealousy, infidelity, murder and a lot of family dysfunction. There’s a good-sized twist at the end, which I didn’t see coding–but then, I rarely do. I tend to just roll with whatever and enjoy the ride. And I enjoyed this one a lot. Thanks to Harper/NetGalley for a copy in exchange for this honest review. Four stars.