Book #85 The Woman In The Window

The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

With thanks to NetGalley and HarperCollins UK for this ARC of The Woman In The Window.

I had heard so much about this book by A.J. Finn; so much praise from highly regarded authors including Stephen King ”unputdownable”, Val McDermid ”twisted to the power of max” - such comments I often ignore. How wrong can I be?! WOW!…

Without a moments hesitation let me say that The Woman In The Window is a read-in-one-sitting-book. No doubt. I know. Half way through I was faced with the distraction of meeting good friends for drinks and dinner. That’s the evening gone I thought. I almost cancelled, to my shame. I didn’t. My wife and I got back home at 10:30pm. I picked up where I left off and read into the early hours. (I still count this as a one-sitting-read. It would have been if an evening out hadn’t interrupted). I could not read fast enough! Page turning in a blur. Pulse racing. Short chapters racking up the unbearable tension. The first reveal, when it comes, smacks you in the face! Everything you thought you knew turned on its head… as Dr Anna Fox haunts the rooms of her old New York house that she hasn’t left for ten months, suffering with agoraphobia. And for understandable reasons. Separated from her husband and daughter, a separation that is heartbreaking. Anna is just too terrified to step outside. Uses her Nikon camera watching her neighbours, through her window, particularly the Russells, on the face of it a happy family of three and a reminder of what once was hers. And then…

The scream. It hurtles across the silence and Anna witnesses something - dreadful. What to do? Does she report what she has seen? Given her state of mind will anyone, including the police, believe her? Can she uncover the truth? Can she believe herself?

Haunting, harrowing, creepy, frightening - the last sixty pages or so are a real white-knuckle ride, really left me stunned and breathless. As Ruth Ware said: ”Hitchcock would have snapped up the rights in a heartbeat”. There is no doubt about that!

My thriller of the year…


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