Title: Mrs. Maitland's affair
Description: This book is wonderful.  A wealthy, workaholic lawyer neglects his beautiful young wife, giving her everything but attention, so she is "fertile ground" for an affair.  She meets "Johnny" and falls in love with him, but you have to reread the parts where they meet because after the story is told, you realize you've been led in the wrong direction.  On the night she leaves her husband a goodbye note and runs off to meet the boyfriend, the police find him shot to death in a sadistic way.  Her husband appears at the scene before she gets there, and takes her home before the police see her or learn of her involvement.  Is her husband protecting her?  Or is he guilty of murder himself, as his cold exterior breaks down and he admits he was insanely jealous?    For awhile, they each suspect each other--and then hard evidence appears that may point to one of them as the killer.  But by then  you don't care, you're rooting for the husband to win her back.  The romance of the book is that her husband is so in love with her that he will do anything he can to win her love again, even while she is mourning the death of her handsome stranger.  But suddenly there is a huge twist and you have to go back over all the clues to figure out who killed whom.  The movie ends completely differently from the book, so don't go by that.  The exact OPPOSITE happens in the novel, so you can't predict what will happen if you've seen "The Other Man," which was made in the mid seventies therapy-driven Big Sur, as opposed to the chilly romantic scenes of 1960's London where the novel takes place.  The movie totally changed the personalities of the characters and left huge holes in logic.  It  had a tragic ending; the book has a far more satisfying conclusion, and explains everything the movie left hanging.  I have made a career of teaching literature for 25 years and have enormous admiration and affection for great books, but I have to say that even if it isn't great art,  Mrs Maitland's affair is the most endearing novel I have ever read.