For fans of We Keep the Dead Close and The Night of the Gun, a propulsive and moving memoir about a brother’s decades-long investigation into the circumstances surrounding his sister’s tragic death—and his own journey to forgiveness and closure.

In September 1974, Jim Thomson learned that his younger sister, Eileen, had taken her own life. Only twenty-seven years old, she was a bright, bubbly secretary, married to her high school sweetheart, Vic, now a cop in San Bernardino, California. But, when Jim returned to the family home for the funeral, it soon emerged that Eileen had been depressed that summer, her storybook marriage racked by infidelity and guilt, until one turbulent afternoon, she found herself in an empty room with a gun in her hand.

Nearly three decades later, Jim started to write a book about Eileen, hoping to fill in the blanks of her tragic story. What demons had she been battling? Why had she kept so many secrets? Increasingly frustrated by how little he knew, Jim hired a private investigator to help him track down Eileen’s old friends and the police reports from her case, a years-long quest that would ultimately reveal a web of anger and deception far more complicated than he had ever imagined—and force him to reconsider everything he thought he knew about his sister, Vic, and himself.

Told with the precision of a detective story and the heart of a family saga, A Better Ending is a moving exploration of love, grief, and acceptance.

James Thomson grew up in Pittsburgh and attended Harvard College on a scholarship, after which he served as the navigator of a Navy ship off the coast of Vietnam, then earned a PhD in American studies. After a brief stint in academia, he had a successful career as a salesman and business consultant. His novel, Lies You Wanted to Hear, received wide acclaim. Jim and his wife live outside of Boston. They have five far-flung children and eleven grandchildren.