The GoodLife

A chilling psychological study of an ordinary husband and wife consumed by their pursuit of the American Dream.

The GoodLife is based on the true story of the kidnapping of an Exxon executive in suburban New Jersey by an unlikely pair of criminals: a middle-aged， middle-class husband and wife， deeply in debt. He was the son of a retired cop; she was the mother of two. Together， they believed they were entitled to more， to a taste of the good life. Intrigued by the audacity of their crime and its psychological underpinnings， award-winning writer Keith Scribner turned his fascination into an unsettling， compulsively readable novel about the American Dream gone awry.

Told from five different points of view， The GoodLife unfolds over the course of three excruciating days. As the couple's carefully wrought scheme begins to falter and their desperation mounts， the novel becomes an engrossing depiction of how a tenuous moral hold comes undone. As much a cautionary tale as a penetrating thriller， Scribner's debut is about the slippery seduction of relative truth and the dangerous lure of entitlement. "Keith Scribner has written his way into the sordid center of a riveting， morally complex crime. He has given us a world -- our world -- that is full of macabre humor and gruesome intimacy， a world in which money talks， sniggers， tempts， and lies. Even as you begin to realize where the fates of his characters are leading， you read on with quickening excitement." --Scott Spencer， author of the New York Times Notable Book of the Year MEN IN BLACK