Psychological thrillers are a dime a dozen these days, and the author needs to have a very distinctive voice in order to stand out from the crowd and make a mark on the genre. This book – for me – failed to do that in every way that matters.
The Serial Killer’s Wife is about an upstanding family living in a small village outside of London. Tom, Beth and their daughter Poppy seem very happy. Tom has a good job and Beth runs one of those cafes where you paint vases and drink coffee. When the police knock on the door one evening, Beth is at first worried – has something happened to Tom? But no, it’s the opposite.
Tom may have happened to someone else. His ex-girlfriend, who is missing and presumed dead.
From there, the story spools into rather endless chapters of meandering – from Beth’s every thought, to Tom’s past, to the village gossip and Beth’s burgeoning friendship with a local widower, whose wife died the year before from anaphylactic shock. It’s all just sort of… there. Nothing really happens until the last few chapters, when the big “twist” is revealed – and yes, it’s a big one and it’s satisfyingly evil, but at the same time, I felt no glory in that discovery because I hadn’t enjoyed the journey.
One of the main problems for me was the flat dialogue (NO ONE talks the way these characters do) and the unwillingness to really let Tom’s inner monologue reveal what a horrific person he truly is. There’s a sense of fakeness, of blandness and of holding back. Part of me thinks that’s because the author didn’t want to chance that she’d inadvertently reveal the twist. And that’s a problem – as I’ve ranted before, the notion that all books must have these enormous, Gone-Girl twists, is maddening.
Books can absolutely be thrilling and special without flipping the narrative on its head in the final pages. I promise.
Thank you to NetGalley for the arc in exchange for an honest review.
doves falling 