If Something Happens to Me

If Something Happens to Me (2024) is a thriller by bestselling author Alex Finlay. It follows Ryan, a law student who is haunted by the disappearance of his girlfriend, Alison. Five years after the traumatic night when she vanished, the police discover Alison’s car submerged in a lake with two unidentifiable corpses inside. Meanwhile, the mysterious assailant who took Alison resurfaces and invites Ryan into a web of intrigue and false identities. Ryan finds himself involved in a plot that is much bigger and more complex than he expected.

Alex Finlay is the pen name of a prominent lawyer who practices in Washington, DC. As Alex Finlay, he has written several bestselling thriller novels, including The Night Shift (2022) and What Have We Done (2023). If Something Happens to Me is a USA Today Bestseller and has been named an Amazon Editor’s Pick in the mystery and thriller genre.

This guide is based on the 2024 hardcover edition from Minotaur Books.

Content Warning: The source material includes references to suicide, physical abuse, the loss of a child, torture, and murder.

Plot Summary

Ryan and Alison are teenagers who have been dating for four years. They park on an isolated country road near Leavenworth, Kansas, planning to have sex, when they are attacked by a mysterious assailant. This man is later revealed to go by the alias Peter Jones. Following a blow to his head, Ryan passes out. When he comes to, he discovers that both Alison and the car are missing. He becomes the prime suspect in her disappearance.

Four years before Alison’s disappearance, she goes by the name Taylor and is a student at an elite private school in Philadelphia. Her father, Michael, works as an accountant for the O’Leary crime family that is headed by Shane O’Leary. Shane’s son, Anthony, goes to the same school as Taylor, where he is bullied by Taylor and her group of friends. Anthony dies by suicide as a result of this bullying, and a brokenhearted Shane discovers a video of him being bullied by his peers. Bent on revenge, Shane lashes out in a wave of murders aimed at the school’s principal and the bullies. When Michael realizes that Taylor’s life is in danger, he tries to enter witness protection. Instead, the FBI agent who promised to help him—a woman named Fincher—betrays him and turns him over to O’Leary’s men. Michael and Taylor manage to escape. They drive to Leavenworth where they adopt new identities, and Taylor takes the name of Alison.

Ryan does not know about any of these events, and five years after Alison’s disappearance, he is still haunted by the trauma of the abduction and the aftermath. He changes his last name and switches colleges to dissociate himself from his past. He is now a law student on a school trip in Italy. Peter Jones finds him there and warns him that there is more at stake. Before he flees, Peter hints that Alison is still alive. With the help of a new romantic interest, his classmate Nora, Ryan tracks Peter to a small village in England. He discovers that Peter and his wife have been brutally tortured and murdered for information about Alison’s whereabouts.

Meanwhile, Poppy McGee, the newest deputy sheriff in Leavenworth, goes with Sheriff Ken Walton to the lake where Alison’s car has been recently discovered. There are two unidentified dead men inside. Poppy begins to investigate and speaks to various people, including Fincher, who still claims to be an FBI agent. Poppy begins to suspect that her brother, Dash, had a hand in the incident; however, he reveals that he witnessed Alison being taken. Dash says Ken, their dad, and Alison’s father—who all served together in Iraq—rescued Alison and killed the two assailants. Then, they dumped the car in the lake.

Poppy gets in touch with Ryan, telling him about a newly discovered note from Alison that she wrote in code. Ryan is able to decode its contents and realizes that Alison is in the south of France, in her ancestral town. He arrives there just in time to save Alison from an attack by the O’Learys’ enforcer. Michael is there, too, and he kills two more of O’Leary’s men. Meanwhile, Poppy has begun to piece together more details about Alison and the O’Learys. Ken has disappeared—he has been kidnapped and killed by the O’Learys in their quest to find Alison—and her father is in a coma, so Poppy finds herself on her own with Fincher. She chooses to trust Fincher and convinces Michael, Alison, and Ryan to fly to Kansas so Fincher can help get them in witness protection.

After getting to Kansas, Michael insists on first going to the witness protection meeting by himself to make sure it is safe. Fincher has arranged for Shane and his wife Gina to attend the meeting, and they take Michael to their car by gunpoint. They order him to drive where they tell him, but he steers the car off a bridge, killing all three of them to protect his daughter. Meanwhile, Chaz, Shane’s righthand man, captures Ryan, Poppy, and Alison. When he hears of Shane’s death, however, he decides to let the three of them go because he is tired of all the violence.

In the aftermath, Ryan finds success and happiness with Nora. Poppy becomes sheriff as a result of her diligent work on this case. Alison, however, returns to France, where she struggles to rebuild her life and identity after facing so many changes and losses.