Dear Wife

April 8, 2019
At the start of this intense thriller from Belle (Three Days Missing), a woman called Beth drives west from Arkansas into Oklahoma to escape her violent husband. She’s carefully planned her exit for almost a year. Meanwhile, Jeffrey Hardison returns to Pine Bluff, Ark., after a business trip to discover that his real estate broker wife, Sabine, is not yet home and has once again left the house a mess. When Sabine’s car is found abandoned, and her whereabouts remain unknown, Det. Marcus Durand of the Pine Bluff PD investigates and soon focuses on Jeffrey as the chief suspect in her disappearance. As the first-person narrative shifts among Beth, Jeffrey, and Marcus, hints of each main character’s motivations emerge. The stakes rise when the police learn that Jeffrey abused Sabine. Multiple plot twists keep the reader guessing all the way to the stunning conclusion, and the link between Beth and Sabine comes as one of the book’s bigger surprises. Belle once again displays a knack for high suspense. Agent: Nikki Terpilowski, Holloway Literary.

April 15, 2019
A woman is on the run with cash, a burner phone, and plans that have taken most of a year to build. But can she escape? Beth Murphy, from Pine Bluff, Arkansas, has planned every detail of her departure meticulously; from her new name to her new appearance and car, she is leaving nothing to chance. But the person she is fleeing continues to be an overwhelming presence in her mind, and she expects to see him hiding in every shadow. He has trained her well through years of abuse, and she knows that he will find her--the only question is when. Her jumpiness during the days and terror-soaked nights are hardly going unnoticed, and it becomes obvious to her new co-workers and rooming-house neighbors that she is not who she says she is. From her new life as a cleaner in Atlanta, Beth obsessively tracks the media coverage of a missing woman from Pine Bluff, Sabine Hardison, and the police's search for her. Sabine is a successful realtor who disappeared one afternoon while her husband was away on business, but as the police dig deeper, it becomes clear that this was not a happy marriage. Suspense author Belle (Three Days Missing, 2018, etc.) switches among three points of view as the story unfolds, giving insights into Beth and her efforts to re-create herself; Sabine's husband, Jeffrey, who is picking up the pieces left behind by his wife's disappearance while coming to terms with the aggressive publicity around his marriage's shortcomings; and the detective, Marcus, who has been assigned to find out where Sabine has gone. Is Beth actually Sabine? Is she not? Are those continuity errors the whisper of red herrings or just the different ways multiple characters perceive the same events? An unexpected ending hinges on information missing from the story. Everything is not quite as it seems in this quick, satisfying read.

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May 1, 2019
Real estate agent Sabine Hardison has disappeared without a trace. At the same time, a woman named Beth Murphy appears just outside of town, on the run from an abusive husband. Beth has put months' worth of effort into reinventing herself, squirreling away money and deliberately laying a misleading trail to her whereabouts. Dogged detective Marcus Durand has identified Sabine's husband Jeffrey as the prime suspect in her disappearance, but as both Marcus and Jeffrey dig deeper, they find that Sabine had a secret life outside of her marriage. Meanwhile, Beth begins to build a new life in Atlanta, including friends and a job cleaning a megachurch?but the person who's after her isn't going to stop. Belle's latest domestic thriller has everything genre fans want: plenty of twists, turns, and misdirection, plus an unexpected and satisfying ending. The alternating points of view give readers a glimpse inside the minds of Beth, Marcus, and Jeffrey?a woman in peril and the two men who will stop at nothing to track her down. Ideal for fans of Gilly Macmillan and Alafair Burke.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)