Choose Me Summary: A Psychological Thriller by Tess Gerritsen & Gary Braver
TL;DR: The Case in Brief
The book shifts between the days after Taryn Moore’s death and the months leading up to it.
It shows how academic obsession, fractured relationships, and a family secret collide.
In Choose Me, a promising college student is found dead outside her Boston apartment. Detective Frankie Loomis doubts the suicide ruling.
The case unravels an affair between the student and her married English professor, along with a terminal illness that pushes someone to commit murder.
- Taryn Moore, a 22-year-old senior, dies from a five-story fall.
- Her affair with Professor Jack Dorian sets off blackmail, obsession, and a concealed pregnancy.
- The killer is not her ex-boyfriend or her professor but someone close to Jack’s family.
- Detective Frankie Loomis, a mother of twins, pursues the truth despite the staged suicide.
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All Characters in This Book
| Character | Role |
|---|---|
| Taryn Moore | A 22-year-old Commonwealth University senior from Hobart, Maine, who dies from a five-story fall and is found to be pregnant. |
| Professor Jack Dorian | The youngest full professor in the English department who has an affair with Taryn and is shot during a confrontation. |
| Dr. Margaret “Maggie” Dorian | Jack’s wife, a primary care physician at Mount Auburn Hospital, who later gives birth to their son. |
| Charlie Lucas | Maggie’s father, a retired Cambridge PD detective with terminal cancer, who murders Taryn to protect Maggie’s marriage. |
| Detective Frances “Frankie” Loomis | A Boston PD homicide detective who investigates Taryn’s death and uncovers the murder. |
| Detective MacClellan (“Mac”) | Frankie’s partner on the homicide investigation. |
| Liam Reilly | Taryn’s high school ex-boyfriend who broke up with her and is dating Libby. |
| Cody Atwood | A Commonwealth student who is in love with Taryn, files the Title IX complaint, and later attacks Jack. |
| Dr. Elizabeth Sacco | The Title IX coordinator at Commonwealth University who investigates complaints against Jack. |
| Helen Ng | Taryn’s next-door neighbor, a student from Quincy. |
| Brenda Moore | Taryn’s mother, a nurse’s aide at a Maine nursing home. |
| Libby (Elizabeth Whaley) | Liam’s wealthy new girlfriend. |
| Dr. Fleer | The pathologist who performs Taryn’s autopsy and discovers her pregnancy. |
| Dr. Maxine Vogel | A feminist critic who invites Taryn to coauthor a paper. |
Choose Me Summary: A Crime of Protection and Obsession
SPOILERS — This section recounts the full story, including the ending.
The book opens in Boston, where a twenty-two-year-old student named Taryn Moore is found dead on the sidewalk below her fifth-floor apartment balcony.
She was a senior at Commonwealth University. The scene looks like a suicide. Detective Frances “Frankie” Loomis notices Taryn’s cell phone is missing.
Frankie, a veteran homicide investigator and mother of twins, refuses to accept the obvious story. An autopsy by Dr. Fleer reveals two separate skull fractures and an early pregnancy.
The injuries mean Taryn was assaulted before she fell.
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Three months earlier, Taryn was a brilliant student in Jack Dorian’s “Star-Crossed Lovers” seminar. Jack, the youngest full professor in the English department, was trapped in a strained marriage to Dr. Maggie Dorian. Their relationship suffered from Maggie’s long hospital shifts and a past miscarriage.
Taryn was also obsessed with her high school boyfriend Liam Reilly. He had dumped her for a wealthy classmate named Libby. Taryn stalked Liam, used a spare key to enter his apartment, and persuaded her classmate Cody Atwood to photograph Liam’s dates.
A jealous classmate named Jessica filed a Title IX complaint against Jack, but Taryn defended him and the case was dismissed.
At a literary conference in Amherst, Jack and Taryn were alone in a hotel. Taryn had just received a coauthoring invitation from a feminist critic. They had unprotected sex. Jack was consumed by guilt.
Taryn refused to end the affair. She declared her love and demanded Jack choose her. When Maggie announced her pregnancy, Taryn escalated. She blackmailed Jack with a semen stain and threatening messages.
Taryn texted Jack that she was pregnant and planned to tell Maggie. Jack’s father-in-law, Charlie Lucas, intercepted the text on Jack’s phone.
Charlie was a retired Cambridge detective with terminal lung and bone cancer. He decided to protect Maggie’s marriage. Charlie texted Taryn back and visited her apartment with five thousand dollars for an abortion.
Taryn refused and attacked Charlie with a statue. Charlie struck her, causing a skull fracture on the coffee table. He then dragged her still-breathing body to the balcony and dropped her to the pavement. He cleaned the scene to stage a suicide.
In the present, Frankie retrieved Taryn’s text logs. Jack admitted the affair but denied sending the final text. He confessed to Maggie. Jack then confronted Charlie, who calmly admitted to the murder.
During the confrontation, Cody Atwood burst in with a crowbar to kill Jack. Charlie fired his gun at Cody but accidentally shot Jack in the chest. Frankie and Maggie arrived. Cody and Charlie were arrested.
Jack survived with spinal damage and lost his job. Fourteen months later, Jack and Maggie were separated but co-parenting their baby boy, Nicholas Charles.
Charlie died in prison hospice. The writing duo of Gerritsen and Braver closes the story on this fractured but healing note.
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Summary by Chapter
SPOILERS — The book’s 48 chapters alternate between timelines. They are grouped below by narrative arc.
The Fall and First Suspicions (Chapters 1–7)
The novel opens in the aftermath of a tragedy. Boston Detective Frankie Loomis investigates the apparent suicide of twenty-two-year-old Commonwealth University student Taryn Moore, who plunged five stories from her apartment balcony.
Frankie’s instincts flare when she notices the girl’s cell phone is missing from the scene. Retracing Taryn’s final months reveals a deep depression following a breakup with her high school sweetheart, Liam Reilly.
Interrogating Liam uncovers a history of stalking and persistent unwanted contact.
Frankie also struggles with her own personal demons, secretly watching the apartment of her late husband’s mistress.
The Star-Crossed Seminar and Domestic Strains (Chapters 8–14)
Three months backward in time, Taryn enters the seminar room of Professor Jack Dorian. He is teaching a course on doomed love in literature.
Taryn displays brilliant insights on betrayal in Abelard and Heloise and spars with a hostile classmate named Jessica.
Meanwhile, Jack’s marriage to Dr. Maggie Dorian is slipping into exhaustion due to her consuming clinical shifts and the lingering ghost of their past miscarriage. Taryn faces financial pressure from her mother Brenda to return to Maine but refuses.
She escalates her stalking of Liam. When she discovers Liam is dating a wealthy student named Libby, she enlists Cody as a spy to photograph them.
The situation ends in a public restaurant confrontation where Liam rejects Taryn as a “psycho” from his past.
Allegations and Amherst (Chapters 15–23)
After the restaurant blowup, Jessica files a Title IX sexual harassment complaint against Jack Dorian. Taryn steps forward to fiercely defend Jack to the university coordinator, ensuring the complaint is dismissed. This builds a dangerous intimacy between them.
Shortly after, Jack’s father-in-law, Charlie Lucas, is diagnosed with terminal lung and bone cancer. Hoping to inspire her academic career, Jack drives Taryn to a literary conference in Amherst. Taryn secures a coauthoring offer from feminist critic Maxine Vogel.
Swept up in celebration, Taryn kisses Jack, leading to an unprotected sexual encounter that plunges Jack into annihilating guilt. Back in Boston, Jack tries to sever ties, but Taryn declares her love and refuses to let the “mistake” end.
Blackmail and a Miracle (Chapters 24–30)
Taryn begins a strategic blackmail campaign against Jack. She threatens to report their affair to Title IX and destroy his career using a semen stain on her couch and her messages as proof.
To escalate the pressure, she schedules a physical with Jack’s wife Maggie, explicitly making her presence known.
Meanwhile, Maggie surprises Jack with the news of her pregnancy. Cornered, Jack meets Taryn in the freezing Fenway marshes to definitively end the relationship.
Taryn responds with rage, realizing she is being abandoned like the tragic figures in her class readings. She vows to ruin Jack and texts him that she is pregnant and planning to expose him to his wife.
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Unraveling the Crime Scene (Chapters 31–37)
The narrative returns to the “After” timeline. Frankie attends Taryn’s autopsy, where Dr. Fleer reveals Taryn was pregnant and suffered two distinct skull fractures.
The injuries indicate she was assaulted before falling from the balcony. Frankie and MacClellan review surveillance footage and discover an “Umbrella Person” fleeing Taryn’s building with a trash bag sixteen minutes after her death.
A forensic sweep using luminol reveals extensive, erased blood drag marks leading to the balcony. The detectives focus on Jack Dorian after retrieving Taryn’s text logs.
A panicked Jack admits to the affair but denies writing the text arranging to meet Taryn on the night she died.
Confrontation and a Terminal Secret (Chapters 38–44)
Realizing his alibi is hollow because Maggie was at the hospital that night, Jack spirals into paranoia. He wonders if his Ativan and alcohol misuse caused a sleepwalking murder.
He meets Maggie at the Museum of Fine Arts to confess his infidelity.
Simultaneously, Cody Atwood attacks Jack in a campus garage, pinning him with an SUV before being scared off. Maggie realizes her father Charlie Lucas must have been involved to protect her.
Jack drives to Charlie’s dark house, where the truth of Taryn’s final night is laid bare.
Vengeance, Gunfire, and the New Normal (Chapters 45–48)
At Charlie’s home, Charlie calmly confesses that he discovered the affair. He used Jack’s phone to lure Taryn and went to her apartment with cash to buy her silence.
When Taryn refused and attacked him, Charlie struck her down and dragged her to the balcony to stage a suicide.
Before Jack can process this, Cody Atwood bursts in with a crowbar to kill Jack. Charlie intervenes with his gun but accidentally shoots Jack in the chest during the struggle.
Cody and Charlie are arrested. Jack survives with spinal injuries.
Fourteen months later, Jack and Maggie are separated but co-parenting their baby boy, Nicholas, while Charlie has died in prison hospice.
Books Like Choose Me
The Surgeon by Tess Gerritsen — A police procedural thriller from the Rizzoli & Isles series with similar investigative tension and psychological elements.
Flashback by Gary Braver — A psychological suspense novel about memory, secrets, and consequences, which won the Massachusetts Book Award.
The Sinner by Tess Gerritsen — A layered thriller with institutional secrets and moral complexity.
Elixir by Gary Braver — A suspense mystery about dangerous human desires and lethal choices.
The Maidens by Alex Michaelides — A dark academic thriller involving murder at a university.
In the Woods by Tana French — A character-driven police procedural with layered mystery and a detective’s personal burdens.
