It’s not often that I pan a book that is nicely written by a competent, well-known author but The Wife by Alafair Burke (Harper, $26.99) disappointed me. I’ve not been nominated for an Edgar Award but let me pass on my thoughts.
This is a “psychological” novel. I think this means there’s not a lot of action, but much internal monologue and back and forth dialogue between the characters. It has several stock characters for any mystery novel—the cynical DA, the relentless detective who is a racial minority plugging away against the system, and Jason, the philandering husband who may or may not be guilty of a multitude of sins. Add to that we have a woman who may be lying as she accuses the husband of sexual harassment. After that claim becomes public, another woman surfaces insisting the husband tied her up and raped her. All very up to date and shiny.
The book begins with allusions to Angela Powells’ back story. She was 16 years old when she disappeared from her middle-class home on Long Island, then returned three years later with a baby. She desperately wants to keep secret what happened to her. Burke slowly unpeels that onion, although it wasn’t a hard guess that she had been abducted and held by a psychopath, apparently with another girl her age.
As the investigations into her husband mount we also see the trouble in her marriage, mostly through her discussions with her best friend Susanna who is an editor, hubby’s best pal, and with her mother who still lives in the same house on Long Island. These exchanges fill the holes in the story, but it might have been nice to see scenes actually play out.
While the assistant DA is reluctant to bring charges on a “he said/she said” case, the detective plods along looking into the backgrounds of both Angela and her husband Jason. In the meantime, Jason mounts a defense that the women are involved in a shady enterprise run by a client of his highly successful scientific consultant firm. He claims its all a setup.
All this drags. I almost begged for something to happen, almost tossed the thing aside. Then one of the women accusing Jason disappears and in the last two chapters we get to the action, and the unraveling of excuses and mysteries.
Two of my favorite writers, L.S. Hilton and Mark Burnell have written a series of books involving a female anti-hero willing to lie, cheat, steal, and even kill in a very glamorous manner. For some reason the anti-hero didn’t work for me with Angela whom I wanted to like but wound up not liking at all.
Give the book a try if you’re willing to be a bit disappointed or if you like the totally unexpected twist, which indeed was a real twist. Overall, I give The Wife a C+.
Steve E Clark as seen in the New York Times is Author of Justice Is for the Lonely and Justice Is for the Deserving, Kristen Kerry Novels Of Suspense. You can purchase his books via SteveClarkAuthor.com/BuyBook or request it at your local book store. Want to know more about Steve Clark, read more reviews or speak directly with Steve? Learn more about Steve at SteveClarkAuthor.com
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