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A stranger in the house
2017
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Library Journal Review
After crashing her car, Karen awakens in the hospital with amnesia and the sense of having escaped something terrible. Then a murdered man is found near the scene she fled. Karen IDs the dead man as the abusive husband she escaped by faking death and assuming a new identity. Although stunned by this bombshell, her loving current husband Tom stands by her-even when Karen is arrested for murder. Essentially a whodunit, the plot's machinery is discernible as it buffets listener suspicions between Karen and her neighbor Brigid, both unreliable narrators harboring secrets. Tavia Gilbert clearly distinguishes between the two women's voices and boosts the narrative by kindling listener trust for Karen. VERDICT The author's best-selling The Couple Next Door will stimulate expectations for this unremarkable suburban murder mystery. ["Fast-paced, engrossing": LJ 7/17 starred review of the Pamela Dorman: Dutton hc.]- Judith Robinson, Univ. at Buffalo © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publishers Weekly Review
At the start of this well-plotted if workmanlike thriller from bestseller Lapena (The Couple Next Door), the cops can't figure out what upstate New York housewife and bookkeeper Karen Krupp was doing in the sketchiest part of town before running a red light and smashing her Honda Civic headfirst into a utility pole-and neither can Karen, who comes to in the hospital with no memory of that night beyond an underlying feeling of dread. But with the discovery of a murdered man just blocks from the scene, bells start to sound for detectives Rasbach and Jennings, setting in motion an investigation that quickly threatens to expose some unsavory secrets beneath the cozy suburban life Karen and her husband of two years, Tom, have constructed for themselves-not to mention the downright creepy activities of the couple's intrusive neighbor, Brigid, who's Karen's putative best friend. Though the characters pack all the emotional heft of the glossy shelter magazines Karen collects, plentiful plot twists-through the final page-make this a diverting page-turner. Agent: Helen Heller, Helen Heller Agency (Canada). (Aug.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
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