I can’t go past a good domestic thriller and when The Wife by Alafair Burke turned up in my mailbox, I read every chance I had over the next two days. It’s like the married version of a whodunit with an underlying back beat of “Stand By Your Man” and I lapped it up from start to finish. It’s sneaky, twisty and suspenseful in a shout-at-the-narrator kind of way (“What the heck are you doing?”).
When Angela met Jason Powell while catering a dinner party in East Hampton, she assumed their romance would be a short-lived fling, like so many relationships between locals and summer visitors. To her surprise, Jason, a brilliant economics professor at NYU, had other plans, and they married the following summer. For Angela, the marriage turned out to be a chance to reboot her life. She and her son were finally able to move out of her mother’s home to Manhattan, where no one knew about her tragic past.
Six years later, thanks to a bestselling book and a growing media career, Jason has become a cultural lightning rod, placing Angela near the spotlight she worked so carefully to avoid. When a college intern makes an accusation against Jason, and another woman, Kerry Lynch, comes forward with an even more troubling allegation, their perfect life begins to unravel. Jason insists he is innocent, and Angela believes him. But when Kerry disappears, Angela is forced to take a closer look—at both the man she married and the women she chose not to believe.
This much-anticipated follow-up to Burke’s Edgar-nominated The Ex asks how far a wife will go to protect the man she loves: Will she stand by his side, even if he drags her down with him?
Told in first person, the narrator was the titular wife. While her husband’s secrets spilled out in a hot mess, she did whatever she could to protect hers, even when that meant standing by her man no matter what. If psychological thrillers are your thing, keep an eye out for this new release.
The Wife is available through HarperCollins online and at good bookshops.
Monique Mulligan
For more of Monique Mulligan’s writing on books, check out Write Note Reviews
Other reviews you might enjoy:
- The Nowhere Child (Christian White) – book review
- Under the Harrow by Flynn Berry – book review
- The Lost Girls (Jennifer Spence) – book review
David Edwards is the editor of The Blurb and a contributor on film and television