Alison Gaylin’s latest book “If I Die Tonight” (William Morrow, 353 pages) grabs the reader with this ominous opening line: “By the time you read this, I’ll be dead.”

The story is every parent’s worst nightmare.

In the tiny village of Havenkill in the Hudson Valley, a former pop star enters the police station claiming that her prized 1973 Jaguar had been carjacked and during the crime a teenage boy who had attempted to help stop the crime was run over and killed by the car-jacker.

Wade Reed, a social outcast, is soon targeted as the carjacker and this prompts him to post on Facebook the ominous opening line revealing his intent on killing himself.

What ensues is a mystery concerning what really happened the night that singer Aimee Em, alias Amy Nathanson, lost her car and Liam Miller was fatally wounded.

To save her son, Wade, from being held accountable for this horrible incident, Jackie, a divorced mother struggling to raise two sons on her own, must find the mysterious woman who could give her son an alibi at the time of the fatal carjacking.

Gaylin explores the cruelties of social media and the dangers of “profiling” troubled teenagers in this well written story of suspense.