Alice Hunter: The Serial Killer’s Wife

In her debut novel Alice Hunter raises the question, how well do we really know the ones we love?

 

Tom and Beth have the perfect marriage, life and family. That is how everyone sees them, two people perfectly in love with a beautiful daughter. But all that changes one night when the police knock on their door and take Tom away for questioning in the disappearance of his previous girlfriend Katie. Beth knows Tom and know he would never hurt anyone. But as more comes to light Beth begins to question everything she knows about her husband and the life they have built. They are husband and wife, till death do us part.

 

I had extremely high hopes for this book, I thought it would be a different perspective, the wife's, that is not featured too often in the mystery/thriller genre. Plus answer the question how well do you know your spouse and how could you not know that they are a killer. I'm sure that is the questions the media and public ask every time a new serial killer is caught, how could the family not know. I’m sad to say I did not fully find out. I made it to 52% in my kindle and I just couldn’t read anymore. 

My main issue with this book is that in the first half of the book, nothing happens and each chapter/day seems monotonous especially after Tom is taken in for questioning for the disappearance of his formal girlfriend. I mean Beth is worried about Tom but makes no effort to see him or talk to him and her main concern is Poppy (which I don’t disagree with). Then there is her concerns about what the posh mom’s group is going to say about her and then she heads to her shop to run it. And that is about it for the first half of the book, each day the same. Yes there is one or two chapters from Tom’s POV but his main thought are they cannot know, which was intriguing but not developed further and hoping that Beth and Poppy are okay. Then a bit from Katie, Tom’s missing girlfriend, but once again not enough there to keep the story flowing and interesting.

There is just not enough in this book to keep me going. I wanted so much more from Beth as she is supposed to be the main character in this book. I wanted her to look into the details of Katie’s disappearance. I wanted her to be more involved with Tom’s lawyer (who was not very helpful to Beth) and to have her reflect on her and Tom’s relationship, could he have done it? What did she know about Katie? What had Tom told her, something, anything to pull this book along.

This book just moved too slowly for me and just became repetitive with each day from Beth’s POV. I think that Hunter had a great idea here, especially for a debut, but just lacked in the execution of the story. 

Cheers!!!

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