The Loving Husband

December 12, 2016
At the start of this engrossing psychological thriller set in rural England from Kent (The Crooked House), Fran Hall awakes early one winter morning to discover that her husband, Nathan, is missing from their bed. A search of their dilapidated farmhouse reveals nothing but the Halls’ two young children. The door is unlocked and the mat is muddy, so Fran heads outside, where she finds Nathan’s bloody corpse in a drainage ditch. As the murder investigation progresses, the police become increasingly suspicious of Fran. She starts to do some digging of her own, and it’s not long before Fran realizes that she was married to a stranger. Skillfully integrated flashbacks permit both Fran and the reader to conduct a marital postmortem, and the harsh weather and isolated locale help amplify the tale’s inherent tension. The plot features some clever twists, and though Kent doesn’t fully earn her ending, she’s crafted an emotionally charged mystery that will keep readers guessing until the final chapter. Agent: Victoria Hobbs, A.M. Heath (U.K.).

Starred review from January 1, 2017
A woman finds her husband dead behind their house and then realizes he was not at all the man she thought she knew in Kent's (The Crooked House, 2016, etc.) gripping domestic thriller.Fran and Nathan Hall have recently moved with their two young children to a farm near the small, run-down village in eastern England where Nathan grew up. Fran is aware of a growing tension in the marriage, exacerbated by her isolation as a stay-at-home mother and her husband's lack of sexual interest, but when she finds Nathan murdered one night, she has no idea what mysteries will surface during the investigation. Providing some flashbacks to explain how the two met and married, the novel focuses on Fran and her conflict with the provincial, misogynist local police as they try to get to the bottom of the matter. The mystery is a slow-burn but is startlingly effective at this pace. The gradual unfolding of truth allows Kent to also explore Fran's stages of grief, her perspective of a world turned completely upside down, first by murder, then by the faintly sinister investigators, and then by the power of the secrets in Nathan's life and in her own. Fran seems utterly, heartbreakingly alone in her loss and in her world, but she maintains a driving sense of self that becomes stronger in the face of adversity. The novel's other great strength is its raw, wild setting. The rough blankness of the landscape serves to emphasize the characters' struggles; this is no bucolic vision but a stark, depressing look at an insular rural area. While the plot, and even the characters, may sound borderline cliche, there is something about Fran's complexity that sets this one apart and makes for a truly chilling, absorbing read.

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December 1, 2016
Hoping to create a simple, nature-filled childhood for their children, Nathan and Fran Hall leave London for Nathan's hometown, Cold Fen. But when Fran discovers Nathan's body in a ditch on their remote farm, the natural beauty shifts into a frightening new landscape. In shock, Fran realizes how isolated Nathan has kept her when she can't answer detectives' questions about Nathan's job, his past, or his local acquaintances. Smug, cunning lead detective DS Gerard targets Fran as Nathan's murderer, and her only ally is Family Liaison Officer Ali Compton, whom Gerard has sidelined from the start. As frightened as she is of the farmhouse's creaking emptiness, Fran knows that staying put and unveiling Nathan's past is the only way to tempt his killer into making a mistake. Kent (The Crooked House, 2016) intensifies Fran's alienation with a steadily darkening atmosphere and foreboding sense of place that cleverly disguises red herrings. A creepy, addictive read for fans of S. J. Watson's Before I Go to Sleep (2011) and Clare Mackintosh's I Let You Go (2016).(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)