THE EAST END is a fairly intriguing debut suspensor about the “haves and have nots”, and the voyeuristic story is set in a claustrophobic time period. An all weekend party is set on a Hampton’s estate by rich mogul LEO’s beeyatchy wife SHEILA. The grunt work is done by the family’s go-to domestic GINA and her college-bound son COREY. Corey itches to get on with a better life in the Fall, but amuses himself over the summer by sneaking into rich people’s houses, empty or occupied, for the thrill of stealing trophy mementoes right under their noses. The night before the party, closeted Leo brings his younger, gay lover HENRY to the estate as a way of making it up to the lover after a recent suicide attempt over the affair by partying it up with booze, drugs, and sex. But, Leo is not on the estate alone after all, and an unforeseeable accident leads to a spiraling cover-up that affects all involved.The premise is exciting enough on its own, but what sets this novel apart is the way rich and poor characters are portrayed as alike beneath the surface of wealth and class distinction, as well as who rises and falls in the process. All these characters are lost and miserable, whatever their financial situation. Despair and hopelessness lies on both sides, and escape into drugs, alcohol and sex is the balm of choice. It was pretty depressing. This is one of those situations in which a sticky situation gets stickier by the minute, as Leo races the clock over the weekend party to cover up what happened – all while the snowballing situation draws more people into the mix. There’s a sense of impending doom that the end may not work out for any of the characters, and there was voyeuristic fascination watching how class distinction offers little help or hindrance to the characters in this dire mess.There’s plenty of secrets and troubles to go around: Gina’s failing marriage to an abusive psycho; Corey lusting for a girl out of his league and desperate to escape his circumstances; Leo living a lie as a married heterosexual but terrified of admitting the truth of his homosexuality; his clueless wife Sheila convinced he has a “mistress”; a gay lover at the end of his rope while pining for Leo to love him. That is, until the “event’ forces them out of their self-destructive comfort zones and into choosing a better alternative in their lives. Lies, deception, tragedy, blackmail, murder, desperation. All this should have come to a harrowing head for an explosive conclusion.But, thought-driven treatment keeps the story obsessively in the characters’ heads, which definitely slows the pace and means less action. The story tends to wallow here and there and lose focus because of it. Even though it takes place over a long weekend, time compressions don’t always make sense nor do the characters’ ability to run around in panic mode without guests or Leo’s family noticing. The story is written as a continuous, ongoing scene separated only by the day in question, and doesn’t take into account things, like downtime at the party for sleeping. After all, it's not a rager but a gathering of rich snobs. Plus there were some awkward segues from one time period or scene to the next. The build-up to the resolution had me very curious about how it would end, but despite the ironic, ill-fated intersection of these characters, the end was rushed, far from explosive, not as riveting as expected, and left too many details unmentioned especially about the blackmail, Corey and his mom. It felt unfinished. In all, it was a good concept that needed more tightening.