The Opportunist: A Novel

by Elyse Friedman

Overview

A deliciously sly, compulsively readable tale about greed, power and the world’s most devious family.

When Alana Shropshire’s seventy-six-year-old father, Ed, starts dating Kelly, his twenty-eight-year-old nurse, a flurry of messages arrive from Alana’s brothers, urging her to help “protect Dad” from the young interloper. Alana knows that what Teddy and Martin really want to protect is their father’s fortune, and she tells them she couldn’t care less about the May–December romance. Long estranged from her privileged family, Alana, a hardworking single mom, has more important things to worry about.

But when Ed and Kelly’s wedding is announced, Teddy and Martin kick into hyperdrive and persuade Alana to fly to their father’s West Coast island retreat to perform one simple task in their plan to make the gold digger go away. Kelly, however, proves a lot more wily than expected, and Alana becomes entangled in an increasingly dangerous scheme full of secrets and surprises. Just how far will her siblings go to retain control?

Smart, entertaining and brimming with shocking twists and turns, The Opportunist is both a thrill ride of a story and a razor-sharp view of who wields power in the world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780778386957
Publisher:	MIRA Books
Publication date:	12/06/2022
Edition description:	Original
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	612,378
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Elyse Friedman is a critically acclaimed author, screenwriter, poet and playwright. Her work has been short-listed for the Trillium Book Award, Toronto Book Award, ReLit Award and Tom Hendry Award. She has also won a Foreword Book of the Year Award, as well as the 2019 TIFF-CBC Films Screenwriter Jury Prize and the 2020 TIFF-CBC Screenwriter Award. Elyse lives in Toronto.

Editorial Reviews

This perfectly paced novel mixes intrigue, drama, and mystery. Each reveal is timed to keep readers glued to the pages, and no character is safe from the others’ lies. With so many appealing factors, this book will be popular with a wide range of patrons.” —Booklist

“The rich are different and Elyse Friedman brings the receipts in this twisty story of familial double crossings. She never hides from the staggering truth that money, in fact, changes everything.”—Emily Schultz, author of Little Threats and The Blondes


“The Opportunist is a wry and unsettling novel featuring one of the nastiest families ever committed to paper. It’s a dark Highsmithian treat about love and greed and murder, and it will make your screwed-up family look like the von Trapps. I devoured it in one sitting!”—Michael Redhill author of Bellevue Square


“In The Opportunist, family brings unavoidable dangers. So does money. So does our memory of who we used to be. For her part, Elyse Friedman brings wit and pace and plenty of surprises to a novel you think you’ve figured out at least three or four times, but each time you’ll be thrilled when proven wrong.” —Andrew Pyper, author of The Residence and The Demonologist


“It's midnight and you promise yourself you’ll read just a few more pages of The Opportunist before turning out the light. Well, suddenly, it’s 2:47 a.m. and you’re completely hooked and dying to know how the story will end. Tomorrow will be a total write-off, and you can blame Elyse Friedman and this extraordinary book.”—Neil Smith, author of Jones


“Part thriller, part family story, The Opportunist is by turns funny and shocking—a twisty, page-turning delight.”—Lynn Coady author of Watching You Without Me

From the Publisher

07/01/2022

Struggling single-mom Alana Shropshire assiduously avoids her family until her grasping brothers offer to pay her to prevent a 29-year-old from marrying their wealthy septuagenarian father. That should take just one little trick, but things spin rapidly out of control. From award-winning Canadian author Friedman; with a 75,000-copy first printing.

Library Journal