The Note

Alafair Burke’s psychological novel The Note (2025) explores the complexities of friendship and betrayal and delves into the deep-seated consequences of secrets both kept and revealed. Set against the luxurious yet isolating backdrop of the Hamptons, the story follows May Hanover and her childhood friends, Lauren and Kelsey, as they reunite for a weekend that spirals into chaos following a seemingly harmless prank.

Alafair Burke is a crime novelist and law professor. She graduated from Stanford Law and teaches criminal law at Hofstra. She was the first woman of color to be elected President of Mystery Writers of America. Her father is acclaimed thriller and mystery writer James Lee Burke, but Alafair is a success in her own right. The themes explored in this guide include The Fragility of Trust, The Burden of Secrets, and The Impact of Personal History on Identity.

This guide refers to the Knopf Kindle edition.

Content Warning: Both the source material and guide feature descriptions of racism, murder, emotional abuse, explicit sexual content, and suicide.

Plot Summary

May Hanover is eager to start a girls’ weekend trip to the Hamptons with her friends Kelsey Ellis and Lauren Berry. Her fiancé, Josh, wonders if she will last the whole weekend, as May has not met with her friends in person for years, although they text each other often. They first met each other 15 years ago at a music camp called Wildwood; at that time, Lauren was a counselor, and May and Kelsey were college-aged campers. Now, May reflects on the ways in which Lauren and Kelsey supported her after a viral video featuring her misguided altercation with a Black man made her the center of a scandal one year ago. Kelsey has rented a beach house for the reunion. Lauren and May enjoy the house while they wait for Kelsey to arrive from Boston.

The narrative recounts the women’s past experiences with Kelsey; May last saw Kelsey in person seven years earlier, but she chose not to attend Kelsey’s subsequent wedding to Luke, her fiancé. Five years ago, Lauren texted May an article showing that Luke had been shot and killed. May debated over whether to reach out to Kelsey but ultimately remained silent because she was not sure what to say. (At the time of Luke’s murder, Kelsey and her father, Bill, were at an awards show, and online speculation arose that one of them might have hired a hit man.)

In addition to May and Kelsey’s respective scandals, Lauren has also had a brush with the consequences of widespread public disapproval. In the past, when Lauren worked as a counselor at Wildwood during May and Kelsey’s tenure as campers there, she had an affair with the camp’s owner, Thomas. An unknown person delivered a note to the camp’s administrators revealing the affair. Lauren has always believed that the person who did this was a gossip-prone camper named Marnie Mann, who drowned soon afterward. In the wake of the scandal surrounding the death and Lauren’s affair, Lauren was fired from her position as a Wildwood counselor. In the years since, she and Thomas have continued their affair.

In the present, May is not enthused by the idea that Kelsey’s stepbrother Nate (who is May’s ex-boyfriend and also had a previous sexual relationship with Kelsey) might join them at the beach house. When the three friends go out to dinner, they are annoyed as a happy-looking couple nabs their parking spot. The friends joke about leaving a prank note on the car. Unbeknownst to her friends, Kelsey actually does so, leaving a note that claims the man is cheating on his date.

That night, as the friends drink copious amounts of alcohol, the topic of Marnie Mann’s death comes up. That night at the beach house, May thinks she hears a car in the driveway, and she also hears the sound of Kelsey crying. The next day, they find a flyer for a missing person named David Smith and realize that he is the same man on whose car they left the prank note. They think that this is an odd coincidence.

Meanwhile, Detective Carter Decker is investigating the disappearance of David Smith. He sends two officers to May’s apartment to ask her about her friends’ connection to David. As the investigation continues, David’s girlfriend tells Carter about the note and reveals that David had been flirting with many women online. Separately, Lauren realizes that David Smith was Marnie Mann’s boyfriend when the three friends were all at Wildwood.

As Lauren and May return to the beach house, they accidentally stumble upon an intense conversation between Kelsey and Nate, who are discussing Kelsey’s decision to have children. Nate flirts with May, and May’s fiancé, Josh, is angered when he learns of Nate’s presence at the beach house. Just as Lauren tells May and Kelsey that David was Marnie’s boyfriend, Carter separately realizes the Wildwood connection between May and David. He also receives a notification about a suspicious vehicle parked on the highway.

Carter asks to speak to the three friends at the beach house and separates them for individual interviews. As she waits, May scrolls through Instagram and talks to Josh on the phone. Seeing notices on Instagram that David Smith is dead, she runs downstairs. Kelsey has just told Carter that she wrote the prank note. May tells Kelsey to stop talking and announces that David Smith is dead. Hearing this, Kelsey screams and has a massive breakdown, believing that because Carter mentioned Luke, he is about to accuse her of killing both men.

May learns that Kelsey actually booked the house two months earlier than she said she did, using the name Callie Martin. Kelsey explains that after someone doxxed her (maliciously publishing her private information online), she created the persona of Callie Martin so that she could date safely. She met David Smith on Instagram, and they started a relationship. May is furious to realize that Kelsey has been lying to them.

Upon researching the circumstances of Luke’s death, May theorizes that the murderer impersonated a police officer and pulled him over, then killed him. She begins to suspect Kelsey of murdering both Luke and David. Telling Carter that she no longer considers Kelsey to be a friend, she relays her suspicions. Carter arrives at the beach house to search the premises and arrest Kelsey. He orders Lauren and Nate to leave.

Lauren and Nate call Kelsey’s father, Bill, and as Lauren explains what is happening, she reflects on Bill’s controlling nature and realizes that he is another possible suspect in the murders of Luke and David. As she and Nate discuss this, Nate tells Lauren that before his mother developed dementia, she revealed that Bill’s family has Mafia ties. Nate and Lauren realize that they need May, who is a law professor, to be Kelsey’s lawyer. After some initial resistance, May reverses her stance on Kelsey’s potential guilt and agrees to represent her.

Carter calls May, and they discuss the upcoming arraignment. Josh is furious that May didn’t ask his opinion before agreeing to represent Kelsey. May asks Lauren and Kelsey to stay at her apartment until they can find a way to avert the current crisis. Josh is even more enraged that she didn’t ask him about this first, so he leaves and stays at his brother’s house. At May’s home, Lauren tries to convince Kelsey that Bill might have hired a hit man, and Nate supports this view, emphasizing Bill’s controlling personality.

With the new developments, May, a former prosecutor, now treats Carter as an ally, laying out her suspicions about Bill and making it clear that Kelsey did not commit the murders. Carter has asked around about May and now has a great deal of respect for her, based on her peers’ opinions. While briefly visiting Nate’s apartment to pick up some clothes for Kelsey, May finds a police uniform and begins to suspect Nate of impersonating an officer in order to commit both murders.

May, Kelsey, and Lauren lure Nate to May’s apartment. With Carter’s help, they already have the place bugged and are prepared to get a confession out of him so that the eavesdropping officers can then arrest him. However, Kelsey veers off-script and yells that Nate has ruined her life. In the turmoil of the conversation, Nate incidentally admits to causing Marnie’s death years ago, and when the police come to arrest him, he throws himself off the 20th-story balcony. However, before he does so, he makes it clear to the police that he, not Kelsey, is responsible for Luke and David’s deaths. The narrative reveals that both crimes were fueled by his lifelong fixation upon Kelsey as a romantic partner.

Thirteen months later, the three friends reunite once again to celebrate new beginnings. Kelsey, having completed the IVF process that she and Luke began years ago, is now pregnant with twins.