Before We Met: A Novel
Hannah Reilly waits at Heathrow to welcome her husband, Mark, home from a business trip. Only Mark never shows. Credit Whitehouse (The House at Midnight, 2009) for opening her latest novel with a crackerjack premise that will hook readers from the first page. Mark’s reappearance—a lost cell phone and a last-minute client meeting explain away his absence—does little to relieve the tension, as seeds of doubt have been planted in Hannah’s mind. Having watched her mother drive her father away with suspicions of cheating, Hannah has been almost willfully trusting of Mark, but the more she digs into her husband’s business dealings and past, the more questions arise. Because Whitehouse has cleverly structured her work as a romantic thriller, with Mark presented as a classic leading man, she’s able to pull off a red herring of a revelation that amps up the plot’s suspense. She doesn’t fully maintain her momentum as the novel gets caught up in exposition, but when Whitehouse sticks to the chase, this is a gripping cat-and-mouse read. --Patty Wetli