Apple Tree Yard

October 21, 2013
Riveting from the opening scene of geneticist Yvonne Carmichael on the stand being cross-examined—at what readers will eventually discover is her trial at London’s Old Bailey, along with her lover, for murder—this taut British psychological thriller from Doughty (Whatever You Love) boasts just about everything a mystery lover could want, except a truly likable protagonist. Which proves to be a problem in the case of narrator Yvonne, a successful scientist who, at age 52, gambles her marriage, family, career, and future on what starts as furtive sex with a stranger in a secluded chapel beneath the Houses of Parliament, and progresses to something approaching folie à deux. It’s even more of an issue with her paramour, known initially as “X,” a man whose true nature she discovers only after it is too late. Eventually, even Doughty’s cunningly constructed and cannily revealed plot can’t camouflage the emotional void at what should be Apple Tree’s core. Agent: Anthony Harwood, Anthony Harwood Ltd. (U.K.).