I have read many thrillers. So many that I’ve lost count. Over the years, I have become really good at figuring out who the bad guy is. I would say I’m right 95 percent of the time. Let’s up that to 97 percent. You can tell I’m quite smug about it, can’t you? So, when I’m more than halfway through a thriller novel and still can’t guess who the murderer/stalker/rapist is, I have to give it to the author for weaving a unique and captivating narrative. I have to concede defeat.

‘The End of Her’ by Shari Lapena never gave anything away despite having so much going on. I could not make up my mind about any of the characters. They all seemed flawed and perfect at the same time—very human. One moment I would think I had it all figured out, and the next I would be unsure again. The plotline isn’t unique but what Lapena has done with it is phenomenal.

Stephanie and Patrick are adjusting to life with their colicky twin girls in New York. Stephanie is a stay-at-home mom and Patrick works a nine-to-five job to foot the bills. Despite being largely sleep-deprived, they are happy. Then Erica arrives. She was Patrick’s first wife’s best friend. She also had an affair with him. Now, she claims Patrick murdered his first wife. She then starts blackmailing the couple, threatening to go to the police otherwise.

Patrick insists he is innocent, that his first wife died of carbon monoxide poisoning. She was in the car while he was shoveling snow right before they were to leave to visit her parents. But Erica says he wanted her out of the picture so that he could start all over. She says she was too scared to come forward earlier. But she wanted to warn Stephanie when she found out he had remarried. Then, why is she blackmailing them? Did Patrick really kill his wife?

 The entire novel reads like the last 50 pages of a thriller; there is so much happening and so many gasp-inducing moments in each page right from the start. There are also other engaging sub-plots that weave into the story and make it compelling. Author Linwood Barclay called Shari Lapena ‘The queen of the one-sit read’ while Steve Cavanagh said she was one of the best thriller writers in the business. The End of Her was my first Lapena book and I’m a fan. Immediately after finishing The End of Her, I started searching for her other books and I’m elated I found ‘A Stranger in the House’. If it’s even half as good as The End of Her, it should be another fantastic read.   

Four stars
Fiction
The End of Her
Shari Lapena
Published: 2020
Publisher: Penguin Random House  
Pages: 414, Paperbac