Anatomy of an Alibi has the kind of thriller premise that works almost immediately because the plan is clever enough to sound possible and dangerous enough that you know it will collapse. Camille needs freedom from a husband who monitors her, while Aubrey needs access to information Camille cannot reach on her own. Their decision to swap identities for one night gives both women something they desperately want, but it also ties them together before either truly understands the other. Once Ben is found murdered, the question is no longer simply what he was hiding; it becomes how much Camille and Aubrey can trust one another when their shared secret could destroy them both.
The strongest part of the novel is the contrast between the two women. Camille comes from wealth and influence, but her comfortable life is much less secure than it looks, while Aubrey has spent years relying on herself after losing her parents as a teenager. Elston uses those differences well because both women are vulnerable in different ways, and neither has complete control over the situation. Their arrangement also creates a useful tension around identity: pretending to be someone else may create an alibi, but it also leaves behind evidence, witnesses, and assumptions that become increasingly difficult to manage once the police begin reconstructing the night.
The structure keeps the mystery moving through several perspectives and timelines, including Aubrey, Camille, Ben, and Ben's law partner Hank Landry. That gives the reader more information without necessarily making the truth clearer, because every new viewpoint introduces another motive or piece of history. The earlier timeline involving Aubrey's past gradually explains why Ben matters to her so much, while the present-day sections keep returning to the immediate danger created by his murder. This approach creates plenty of misdirection, although it also becomes one of the book's weaknesses when the growing cast and timeline shifts start demanding more attention than the central relationship between Camille and Aubrey. Kirkus raised a similar concern, describing the cast as overloaded and some of the timeline movement as confusing. Kirkus Reviews
Elston is especially effective when the book focuses on control. Ben's habit of tracking Camille turns ordinary technology and financial records into tools of surveillance, which is precisely why the impersonation plan initially seems necessary. At the same time, Aubrey has spent years trying to control a past that never gave her satisfactory answers, so both women enter the scheme believing that enough preparation can finally give them power over their circumstances. The murder exposes how fragile that belief is. Their elaborate plan may explain where one woman appeared to be, but once someone dies, every detail designed to protect them can also look like evidence of premeditation.
The novel becomes less convincing when almost everyone begins to look capable of killing Ben. A large suspect pool is useful for a thriller, but too many motives can start feeling like deliberate red herrings rather than natural extensions of the characters. The final solution has also divided reviewers: some found the twists satisfying, while Kirkus felt the answer arrived too far outside the trail the novel had spent building. I think the book is more enjoyable as a fast, complicated puzzle than as a perfectly airtight mystery. The momentum and identity-switch premise carry it even when some of the later revelations feel more engineered than inevitable. Kirkus Reviews
What stayed with me most was the way an alibi changes meaning throughout the story. At first, it is something Camille and Aubrey deliberately manufacture so each can pursue the truth without being watched. After Ben's death, that same construction becomes dangerous because an alibi is only useful if the people examining it believe the story behind it. Elston gets good suspense from that reversal, and the Louisiana setting adds another layer through wealth, reputation, family influence, and a town where powerful people have long memories.
