Samantha Downing’s psychological thriller narrates the story of a married couple who get away with murder. They decide to fake the return of a former serial killer to disguise their involvement in the murders of young women around town.
But when their little game begins to display drastic repercussions in the lives of their two young children, the husband decides to put a stop to it at all costs.
I’d say this book was more intriguing than thrilling (will I never find a psychological thriller that scares the hell out of me?!).
What really kept my attention fastened onto the pages is the composed, unfeeling tone of the narration. The story is recounted through the husband’s voice, and the chronology alternates between the present and the time after he’d first met Millicent (his wife).
I feel that My Lovely Wife accomplishes to a certain extent what Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train failed to do – create an intriguing premise surrounding a psychopathic character.
Millicent has been depicted as a firm character who is a disciplinarian through and through. She enforces strict rules at home, instilling a sense of fear in her children as well as her husband.
You can make out that the husband (unnamed throughout the book) is partially going along with the serial killings to appease Millicent’s erratic self.
There’s a certain appeal to books that follow a different tangent to murder mysteries – especially ones that raise the curtain by introducing the culprits and the crime to the reader. That’s yet another aspect of the book I enjoyed.
The concluding conflict caught me off guard. While I’d thought that the husband would succeed in convincing Millicent to stop, I would not have predicted this turn of events.
All in all, it’s a moderately entertaining read that, in my opinion, is quite better than the other hyped ones.
The Life Stories 