Those Empty Eyes

Those Empty Eyes is a 2023 legal thriller by Charlie Donlea. The novel follows Alex Armstrong, an investigator for a law firm whose work on a rape scandal at a local university unexpectedly draws her closer to her traumatic past. She was once Alexandra Quinlan and was wrongfully accused (though eventually exonerated) of the brutal murder of her parents and brother. As Alex dives deeper into the rape scandal, she begins to uncover the secrets of her past and the terrifying truth behind the identity of her family’s murderer. Those Empty Eyes uses a mosaic structure and unexpected turns to explore violence and criminality as well as justice in the American legal system. The novel is Donlea’s seventh thriller and eighth novel; his previous books were USA Today bestsellers, and his novel Twenty Years Later is set for adaptation into a television series.

This guide refers to the 2023 hardcover edition of Those Empty Eyes published by Kensington Books.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide discuss murder, death by suicide, rape (including rape of minors), child pornography, alcohol use disorder, and gun violence.

Plot Summary

On the night of January 15, 2013, an intruder broke into the Quinlan family home and murdered the parents and brother of Alexandra Quinlan, leaving photos of young women scattered around their bodies. Alex managed to evade the intruder but was wrongfully detained after the police arrived. Overeager reporter Tracy Carr labeled Alex “empty eyes,” inciting a public furor about her role in the murders. She fought to get out of juvenile detention and, working with lawyer Garrett Lancaster, the husband of the police officer who found her at the scene of the murders, eventually won a defamation trial to clear her name.

Two years later, Alex, who was in hiding under the Lancasters’ care in the US, seeks a more normal life, moving to London to attend university. Rather than committing herself to her studies, though, she’s desperate to solve her family’s murders. Using money from the defamation trial, she purchased her family home and inside found unmarked Swiss bank statements. They’re her only clue, so she heads to Zürich but returns to London when the bank won’t provide information. However, a bank employee—Drew Estes, a true crime fanatic—recognized her. He and his girlfriend, Verne, stalk her back to her London flat and try to extort money to keep her whereabouts secret. She tries to defend herself against them, brandishing a gun, and in the melee, a man named Leo (whom Garrett hired to watch over Alex) breaks in, rescues her, and detains Drew and Verne. Leo helps Alex use Drew’s connection to the bank to get information about the statements. She learns that they belong to a high-profile sex trafficker named Roland Glazer. After picking her up, Garrett takes her out of university and offers her a job.

Eight years later, Alex—now living as Alex Armstrong—works as an investigator for Garrett’s firm, Lancaster & Jordan. Under the tutelage of the firm’s senior investigator, grizzled drinker Buck Johnson, Alex breaks into the apartment of one of the firm’s new clients, Byron Zell. The firm wants to double-check Zell’s financial records, so Alex emails them from Zell’s computer directly to Garrett. Zell’s finances check out, but the file Alex emailed contains child pornography.

The text introduces several other characters and events. Years earlier, two teens—a boy and a girl—at Camp Montague, a summer camp, murder camp counselor Jerry Lolland, who raped them; the girl scatters Lolland’s photos of his many victims around his corpse. Present-day student Laura McAllister researches a rape scandal on McCormack University’s campus that the administration has covered up. Meanwhile, FBI agent Annette Packard vets Larry Chadwick, the US president’s pick for next Supreme Court justice, and discovers a rape scandal at the university his son, Duncan, attends. Laura, on the way to publish her report, is murdered. Alex’s storyline converges with these others when Matthew Claymore, Laura’s boyfriend, hires Lancaster & Jordan after the police approach him about her disappearance. Jacqueline Jordan, the firm’s other name partner, takes the case and asks Alex to investigate Matthew. Alex confirms his claims of innocence but suspects that the unpublished report will shed light on what happened to Laura, whose body is found in the woods near the school. Breaking into a room at the university, Alex retrieves the file but in doing so is spotted by both Tracy Carr and Annette Packard, who are on campus investigating Laura’s murder. Annette, who saw Alex retrieve Laura’s file and wants to ask her about what it contains, runs a background check on Alex and realizes that she’s Alexandra Quinlan.

Events escalate: Byron Zell is murdered in his apartment, and photos of child pornography are scattered around his body—a detail Alex notes as similar to her family’s murders. Alex learns from Laura’s report that the woman raped at McCormack had a rape kit prepared that would prove Duncan raped her. However, DNA evidence identifies Laura’s murderer as Reece Rankin, a random drifter, who confesses to the murder and rape of Laura. Matthew Claymore is now cleared, so Lancaster & Jordan drops the case, but Alex finds Rankin’s confession unconvincing. Jacqueline visits Alex’s apartment, and Alex shares her fear that Rankin may not have acted alone; Jacqueline tells Alex that the firm can’t do much about it. When Annette approaches Alex, saying she knows who Alex really is, she tells Annette what she knows about Duncan in exchange for Annette’s help in solving her family’s murders. Seeing that Alex has drawn connections between her family, Roland Glazer, and Byron Zell, Annette enlists her friend Lane Phillips, who specializes in finding serial killers by tracing commonalities among victims.

Jacqueline, distressed by Alex’s conviction that Rankin didn’t act alone in Laura’s murder, visits him in prison. He admits that Duncan and Larry Chadwick hired him to commit both crimes. Meanwhile, Lane Phillips identifies three murders similar to those of the Quinlans and Zell, all of which have connections to Lancaster & Jordan, and notes a death years earlier at Camp Montague: A counselor thought to have died by suicide was found among photos of children he had raped; Alex gets the investigating officer’s name. At the firm that night, she hacks into the computer system, learning that Jacqueline worked all the cases in which clients were found murdered and covered in photos. When Jacqueline appears, Alex lies about what she is doing and heads to Virginia to visit the now-retired officer from the Montague case. Jacqueline realizes from the computer’s search history that Alex knows the truth: She killed Jerry Lolland in revenge and has used her position as a lawyer to find and kill perpetrators of sex crimes against minors.

Martin Crew, the officer on the Montague case, confirms that fingerprint evidence indicated Jacqueline Jordan, but he couldn’t prove it. When Alex returns to her hotel room, Jacqueline (who followed her) injects her with a paralytic and explains that she killed her parents because they were Roland Glazer’s accountants and almost certainly knew that he was a child sex trafficker. She killed Alex’s brother because he was an eyewitness. Jacqueline also mentions that Alex’s “mentor” was involved in the killings. Annette, who followed Alex after Lane revealed Martin Crew’s identity, breaks into the room and fights Jacqueline. In the scuffle, Annette’s gun gets away from her, and Jacqueline injects paralytic into her. However, Alex manages to retrieve the gun and shoot Jacqueline, killing her.

Selling her parents’ house, Alex moves to London. She provides Laura’s report to Tracy Carr so that the truth behind the McCormack incidents will be revealed. Alex then works for Leo as an investigator in his London firm. The novel’s final chapter reveals that Alex’s “mentor,” whom Jacqueline mentioned, was the boy in the Camp Montague murder: Garrett. Continuing Jacqueline’s work, Garrett arrives at the Chadwick house, intending murder.