3 new, twisty thrillers you don’t want to miss
Here are three new, twisty thrillers you don’t want to miss:
The First Time I Saw Him by Laura Dave
Laura Dave struck literary gold in 2021 with “The Last Thing He Told Me,” a propulsive thriller about a woman named Hannah Hall whose husband, Owen Michaels, disappears. That bestselling novel was a Reese’s Book Club pick and is now an Apple TV series starring Jennifer Garner.
Its fans will find much to love in the sequel, “The First Time I Saw Him.” Five years have passed since Owen vanished, and Hannah and her stepdaughter, Bailey, have made new lives for themselves in Southern California. But Hannah realizes, after an abrupt visit from Owen and a troublesome news report about Bailey’s grandfather, that she and Bailey are in danger. They are forced to go on the run from a criminal syndicate.
Dave’s embrace of tension instead of action turns the novel into an effective study of suspense. Her taut prose matches the story, with moments of emotional poignancy, as in this scene when Hannah is trying to comfort Bailey in the aftermath of a particularly heartbreaking death: “And I can see her trying to process it. The death that had been hovering over us. … The death we have been trying to ready ourselves for — as if you can ever ready yourself for that kind of leveling, for that kind of grief.”
For a thriller, the novel’s pace isn’t especially brisk, but that doesn’t seem to be Dave’s intention. Instead, “The First Time I Saw Him” offers a sense of completion to the characters of its predecessor and provides answers to questions that readers of that book probably had. It is still a story of people on the run, but the novel takes time to flesh out the protagonists and the circumstances that have created their universe. The result is a tense story, but a surprisingly tender one.
‘Dear Debbie’ by Freida McFadden
The protagonist of Freida McFadden’s latest thriller is Debbie Mullen, an advice columnist whose work focuses on women married to selfish men. Debbie’s life starts falling apart: She loses her job, suspects her husband of keeping a damaging secret and discovers that her teenage daughters are exercising their independence in troubling ways. Frustrated with her crumbling world, Debbie begins acting out in an increasingly unhinged manner.
A malevolent but weirdly endearing black humor runs through “Dear Debbie,” as McFadden deftly switches the point of view between the central characters. She also intersperses unpublished drafts that Debbie has written in response to queries she’s received, such as this reply to a woman whose husband won’t allow her to listen to her favorite music: “If your husband is not agreeable to this compromise, it’s time to get out that sewing kit! Slip an over-the-counter antihistamine into his wine at night, and while he is sleeping, you can make a hole in his eardrum using the needle from the kit (they’re so handy!). When you’ve completed the first one, move on to the second. It can be a little tedious, but it’s a fairly simple procedure!”
The novel’s gleeful sense of evil has a lot going for it, and McFadden is an efficient storyteller, but the plot is unfortunately undone by a twist. McFadden has built an empire with this literary device, but, as satisfying as those unexpected swerves can be, they come off as improbable in this work, relying too heavily on coincidence.
‘My Husband’s Wife’ by Alice Feeney
Alice Feeney’s beguiling thriller opens with a shock: Eden Fox returns to her new house in the English village of Hope Falls to discover that her entire life has been stolen. After Eden’s key doesn’t fit the lock, someone who looks like her answers the door, and this woman has no idea who Eden is. Eden’s husband claims that the stranger is his real wife.
The chapters alternate between Eden’s story and the perspective of a character named Birdy, a sarcastic loner who has received distressing health news and learned the exact date of her death from a new technology company based in London. Birdy embarks on a course that sends her to Hope Falls, where her story intersects with Eden’s. The setup is so disorienting that some readers may believe the novel is about to step into speculative territory, but Feeney, whose previous books include “Sometimes I Lie,” “Rock Paper Scissors” and “His & Hers,” keeps her characters sharp and grounded in reality.
The chapters in “My Husband’s Wife” tend to be short, ending with abrupt cliff-hangers. It seems as if every character has a secret and every action is layered, but the emotional motivations underlying them are entirely human and relatable. “There is no such thing as coincidence,” a detective advises a young police officer at one point in the novel, and readers, as well as writers, would do well to heed that advice. It tends to be true of the best thrillers. And in the case of “My Husband’s Wife,” it results in a funny, sexy, thoroughly satisfying read.
