The Perfect Couple by Jackie Kabler
Genre: Domestic thriller, Psychological thriller, Crime Fiction, Police Procedural
Read: 17th April 2020
Purchase: Amazon
(publication date: 17th April 2020)
★★★★ 4 stars
I was invited by the publisher to read this book and judging by its premise, THE PERFECT COUPLE sounded like an intriguing twisty domestic thriller that I could easily devour...and devour I did! Just when you think you have it worked out, the story turns on its head to reveal something completely different!
Gemma O'Connor has the perfect life with a new home in a beautiful city, a loving husband, an adorable dog and an ideal job as a freelance journalist. Everything is just perfect...until it isn't.
Gemma met Danny via dating app Tinder eighteen months prior and after a whirlwind romance, Danny proposed and the two were married on St Patrick's Day. Wanting a change of pace, the couple made the move from London to Bristol the following year, settling in a charming Victorian semi in the leafy suburb of Clifton. Danny worked in IT and after wrapping up one final job, followed Gemma to Bristol a week later to begin work at a new IT firm the following week. As a freelance journalist, Gemma was her own boss and wrote columns and pieces for various magazines. Not as exciting as that of a crime reporter or chasing stories on the frontline, after suffering a breakdown as a result of her work in that field, Gemma changed pace and became freelance instead. The job meant she needed to travel from time to time writing about the places she visited and the food on offer.
One Thursday morning, Gemma left on a short overnight stay in the Cotswolds at a hotel spa, paid for by the magazine for which she was writing the piece. Upon her return, Danny has promised to cook her dinner the following night and she is looking forward to enjoying a quiet evening with her husband.
So when she arrives home to darkness and silence, she finds the house empty. At once, Gemma realises that Danny must be once again working late...and so she doesn't worry. Until she wakes the following morning to find he still hasn't returned. Frustratingly she can't call him as he hasn't yet been supplied with a phone and the two of them have been relying on emails to communicate. So she fires off a quick email expecting that he will soon respond. By Sunday, she decides to report his disappearance to the police.
The police, however, are dealing with a frustrating investigation of their own. Two men have been murdered in The Downs area with nothing whatsoever connecting them except the fact that they bear such a striking resemblance to each other they could be brothers. Then when Gemma walks in to report Danny's disappearance, they are at first quick to dismiss her...until she produces a photo of her missing husband. He looks exactly like the two murdered men. Enquiries are ramped up with the possibility that there could be a third yet undiscovered victim as the police begin to look into Danny and Gemma's lives.
Throughout the course of their enquiries, police can find no trace of Danny having ever been in Bristol and his job at the IT firm, which he was offered, he in fact had turned down. None of their neighbours had ever seen Danny, none of their friends had seen or heard from him since the end of January...when he was to have finished up with his previous job in London. His bank accounts haven't been touched - no withdrawals and no deposits - and by all accounts, there is no trace of him since London. So DS Devon Clarke and a DC make the trip to London to take a look at their old flat, as it hadn't been let since the couple moved out three or so weeks ago. When the pair walk in, nothing prepares them for what they are about to walk into.
What they find turns the investigation on its head as they change course and begin to come after Gemma. Is she lying? A very good actress? Or does she believe everything she is telling them?
Finding the police are of no help, Gemma attempts to find out for herself what happened to Danny...but nothing will prepare her for the truth.
I didn't know what to expect when I walked into THE PERFECT COUPLE, except maybe to discover that they were anything but...as is generally the case of thrillers with "perfect" in the title. But I was drawn in from the very beginning as I began to piece together my own theories as to what may have happened...and I couldn't have been further from the truth. And the truth, when it came, was so far out of left field it did seem a tad far-fetched but still incredibly compelling. My one niggle is that the version given to the police and the version given to Gemma at the end both differed greatly, with only the former giving a satisfactory explanation about "the week in question" between the end of January and the second week in February. I was left wondering what was actually the point.
What did make the story compelling and intriguing throughout was the alternating narratives between Gemma in the first person and the police in the third. You got to see both sides of the coin and how both narratives were woven together. I loved the camaraderie between DCI Helena Dickens and her DS Devon Clarke, and the rest of the team. It was a breath of fresh air to enjoy a police procedural (in part) without all the stereotypical angst that generally goes along with it. I liked the police characters so much I would love to see this become a series featuring them.
What also makes THE PERFECT COUPLE an engaging read is the combination of two genres of thriller and police procedural with well-written characters that are believable and well-rounded, both the likeable and the unlikeable.
A definite page-turner, THE PERFECT COUPLE is a twisty domestic thriller that will keep you guessing to the end. A must for lovers of crime, mystery, thrillers and suspense.
I would like to thank #JackieKabler, #NetGalley and #OneMoreChapter, #HarperImpulse and #KillerReads for an ARC of #ThePerfectCouple in exchange for an honest review.
No comments:
Post a Comment