5 August 2017

Review: A STRANGER IN THE HOUSE, Shari Lapena

  • this edition published by Transworld Press 2017
  • ISBN 978-0-5930-7741-2
  • 288 pages
  • author website
Synopsis (book cover)

Why would you run scared from a happy home?

You’re waiting for your beloved husband to get home from work. You’re making dinner, looking forward to hearing about his day. That’s the last thing you remember.

You wake up in hospital, with no idea how you got there. They tell you that you were in an accident; you lost control of your car whilst driving in a dangerous part of town.

The police suspect you were up to no good. But your husband refuses to believe it. Your best friend is not so sure. And even you don’t know what to believe . . .

My Take

One of those novels that hooks the reader right from the beginning.

When Tom Krupp comes home a little later than he had intended, he knows from the open front door, and the absence of his wife Karen, that something is very wrong. His wife's mobile phone and purse are in the house, and it looks as if she left in the middle of preparing dinner. Her car is gone.

A little later a policeman turns up to tell him that his wife has had an accident. At hospital Tom finds that Karen is heavily concussed and appears to have severe amnesia. When she was admitted she was unable to give her name and she kept repeating the name Robert.

The police decide to charge Karen Krupp with reckless driving - she did run some red lights - but they are not convinced by her story of amnesia. They decide to take a closer look at things, to work out why she was driving so badly.

Tom is not convinced by the amnesia angle either and he wonders what Karen is hiding. He searches the house for clues about what might have sent her out that night.

A very readable book, with a few hidden twists.  The ending still came out of left field.

My Rating: 4.5

About the author
Shari Lapena is the internationally bestselling author of THE COUPLE NET DOOR. She was a lawyer and an English teacher before turning her hand to fiction.
She lives in Toronto.

1 comment:

Irene said...

Sounds very good, thank you for your thoughts.

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