Before We Met, by Lucie Whitehouse (Bloomsbury, January 2014)

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Neil

The success of Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl seems to have spawned a new genre of marriage thriller. This is another one - but it's a really, really good one! Personally, I thought Gone Girl started well and ended badly, but this one maintains believability right to the end, and does it at pace. Hannah has been a successful businesswoman who has avoided commitment, but since meeting Mark, her life has changed. The book opens with her, 8 months happily married, heading to Heathrow to meet her husband due to return from business in New York. Mark isn't on the plane, and she can't get hold of him. When he finally calls her, his explanation doesn't quite ring true. And her bank account has been emptied. The twists keep coming, and it's hard to know who to believe and who to trust, but it's obvious that there are secrets in Mark's past. This is an excellent psychological thriller.