The Couple Next Door by Shari Lapena - book review

The Couple Next Door is a bestselling novel of psychological suspense by Shari Lapena, whom I had the pleasure of meeting in the whirl of the Toronto Bouchercon last year. Shari, who is herself based in Toronto, is a former lawyer, and I've always particularly enjoyed reading the crime fiction of legal eagles who have managed to fly away from the desk, the computer, and the clients for long enough to write a novel.

As regular readers of this blog will know, I'm a long-term fan of novels of psychological suspense, and when I read them, I find myself not only enjoying the story (assuming it's a good one) but also of studying the approach taken by the writer - whether it's Patricia Highsmith or Celia Fremlin in days gone by, or Paula Hawkins or Gillian Flynn today. For instance, a key decision is whether to opt for a first person narrative, or a third person single viewpoint narrative. Shari Lapena has chosen the third person multiple viewpoint method, and it's a choice well-suited to her plot. A key reason why it works so well is that it enables her to shift suspicion around a small cast of characters in a very effective way.

In a nutshell, this is a "baby in jeopardy" thriller.  Anne and Marco have been invited round to dinner by Graham and Cynthia, the couple next door, and have unwisely succumbed to pressure from Cynthia to leave their tiny daughter Cora at home, checking on her regularly. You can guess what's coming, can't you?

It's a long time since my own children were as small as Cora, but anyone who's been a parent can, I think, empathise with the terror of Anne and Marco as their life together rapidly falls apart, with Cora missing, and the police deeply suspicious that one or both of them may be implicated in the kidnap. Losing your child is really a parent's worst nightmare. At least Anne's own parents are rich enough to be able to afford to pay a ransom demand, but is that really such a good idea? The moral dilemmas come thick and fast, and so do the plot twists. This is a pacy, action-packed thriller, brimming with suspense. No wonder it's achieved such success.

The Girl on the Train - book review

Paula Hawkins' thriller The Girl on the Train has become perhaps the most successful book in roughly the same vein as Gillian Flynn's bestseller Gone Girl. (Perhaps I should have called my last book The Girl from the Dungeon House). It's an example of domestic suspense, an update of the woman-in-jeopardy type of novel that has been around for many years, but which has in recent times had a fresh lease of life.

Hawkins' book, like Flynn's, features unreliable narrators, and marriages tested to destruction. Like Flynn, she uses first person narratives cunningly; they give the story immediacy (even though some of the sections are set before the crucial sequence of events begins) and they conceal as much as they reveal. These are powerful techniques if used well, and I feel that Hawkins handles the material expertly. I was not surprised to learn that, although this is the first Hawkins novel, she has previously published fiction under a pen-name as she learned her craft. There is something highly professional about the storytelling.

The principal narrator (there are three in all) is Rachel, an alcoholic who becomes obsessed with the lives of a seemingly happy couple whose house is on her train route. Hawkins has acknowledged her debt to Rear Window (the film, perhaps, rather than Cornell Woolrich's excellent novella) and is evidently an Alfred Hitchcock fan, but makes inventive use of the idea of a voyeur watching a crime scene. Rachel behaves crazily, involving herself in lives that are no business of hers, with dangerous results. It's all very gripping.

An interesting feature of the book is that there are only six main characters, three men and three women. Suffice to say that none of them is likeable, and if you prefer your novels to have at least one character you can love, you may not find this book to your taste. Yet Hawkins has argued that there is something appealing about Rachel, and I certainly found myself wanting to know what fate she would meet. Gone Girl set a high standard for domestic suspense novels, but Hawkins' book is a worthy example of the form, and deserves its success..