“I hate him because of what he did to my family; she hates him because of what he might do to hers”
- Book: The Wife In The Photo
- Location: Virginia
- Author: Emily Shiner
Wow! This one takes the domestic thriller to a whole new level and even now, some days after finishing the book, I’m still not really sure what to make of it! Let me see if I can explain this convoluted plot, without giving away too many spoilers.
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Evan Warner, his wife Lola and daughter Jessica, live in heartland Virginia. He works in law enforcement, having worked his way up from street cop to become Chief, where he now has a desk job dealing mostly with internal affairs, although his meteoric promotion had caused controversy amongst his peers, who had never considered him to be a good officer, with his promotion, in their opinion, a sideways move, rather than the outright dismissal he deserved. His right-hand woman is Miriam, middle-aged, dependable, highly efficient and who knows almost more about Evan than he knows about himself, definitely much more than he would like her to know, it transpires.
Lola had recently died in a tragic accident, leaving a stunned Evan and his distraught teenaged daughter Jessica, all at sea and unsure how to carry on with life. Neither of them are coping well with the day to day functions of sharing a home together and the regular chores that entails, and as communication between them is almost non-existent and barely civil, it is hard to see where they go from here. Miriam suggests that a housekeeper might be the way forward short-term, so with Evan’s approval she sets off on a recruitment drive for just the right person, which she manages very conveniently to achieve within hours.
Ariel seems like the answer to Evan’s prayers, even though Jessica is overtly rude to her and defiantly refuses to accept that she isn’t there simply to replace her mother. So, at his wits end and with nothing more than Miriam’s recommendation, Evan hires Ariel without a second thought. For the first couple of days, everything appears to be going well, with Ariel managing to restore a functioning household in double quick time. She even seems to be making progress with Jessica, although that is going to be much slower going, as she needs to be coaxed back into some semblance of normality almost every step of the way, especially as she is being influenced by a ‘friend’ she would be doing much better without.
It is only now, when both Evan and Jessica realise the benefits of having Ariel running the household, that the lady in question begins to let her guard down and little by little her real reasons for accepting a position in the Warner household becomes clear to the reader. A professional housekeeper she most definitely is not! Now, a deadly game of cat and mouse begins, as first Evan and then Jessica, begin to suspect that the person they have trusted and let into their home, is not there solely with their best interests at heart, or at least not for one of them. They begin to observe her closely and question her every move, although their motives for doing so may not be the same.
Eventually, when it is obvious that Ariel is getting a bit too close to the truth for comfort, Evan decides to dispense with her services, but the lady herself has other ideas and has made a copy of the Warner house keys. Letting herself into the property when Evan is at work and Jessica at school, Ariel’s search for evidence, whilst fruitful, highly emotional and conclusive of wrongdoing, comes at a higher price than she could ever have imagined, not only for herself, but for those who had sought to help her unravel the mystery of Lola’s untimely demise.
The thing to remember, is that in this story, no one is innocent and it is definitely not all over until ‘the fat lady sings’ as the saying goes! So make sure you keep reading right to the very last page.
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Why so difficult to write a review for this book? Well, the story only has a handful of characters, ninety percent of the action takes place inside one house, and I have to be honest when I say that I did need to suspend belief a little at one point (can’t say why, but you’ll discover it easily for yourself). Despite all that, this was a real edge-of-the-seat thriller, where I always knew something much worse than the gruesome event which kicks off the opening chapter was going to happen, but I wasn’t sure what, when, by who, or to whom! In other words – I never had a clue about the eventual outcome and there wasn’t a single moment where I felt at ease whilst I was reading!
This intense, highly textured, multi-layered storyline, might have been a little too over-thought, as there were so many twists and turns, especially in the latter third of the book, that the cast of characters seemed to be falling over one another in their haste to throw one more spanner in the works before any kind of closure on events could be achieved. Fortunately, the chapters were short, well-signposted and very punchy, which is just as well, because it would have been easy to become confused otherwise. The main body of the story was narrated in dual perspectives by Ariel and Evan, as a chronological diary of dates covering a period of about one month, beginning approximately two weeks after Lola’s death. There were also interspersed extracts from Lola’s and Jessica’s personal diaries, again narrated in their own voices, with Lola telling of events over the course of the month leading up to her death, whilst Jessica’s began at the time of her mother’s ‘accident’ and ran concurrently with those of the principal chapters. Sounds confusing, but it really isn’t when you are immersed in reading, it’s actually very well structured and dovetailed together.
Woven into the storyline, there was also quite a raft of societal issues, with either one or more of them being relevant to almost every character. Self-harming with the motive of incriminating someone else; drug abuse; alcohol abuse; extra marital affairs; forced adoption; coercion and psychosis. This is a story where absolutely everyone had secrets, some worse than others certainly, but all equally damaging nonetheless, to either themselves or others. With only five principal characters and detective Mike Maroni, who had been liaising with Evan and Jessica during the investigation into Lola’s death, you can see how dark, depressing and morbid the atmosphere surrounding the Warner household seemed. However well drawn and compulsive this small collection of complex, manipulative humanity was, their disturbing and overwhelmingly dour, inanimate and lugubrious demeanour was constant, like wading through a field of treacle and never being able to make forward progress. They were definitely not in the least bit authentic, with little or no synergy between them, making them totally unreliable and unrelatable for me, which is just as author Emily Shiner intended I am sure.
As not only an avid reader, but also a confirmed ‘armchair traveller’, I admit to feeling just a little miffed that I read this entire book with only one single mention of a location, blink and I might have missed it! Even then, it might have been any street, in any town or city, so vague were any reference points. However, this was a story all about the plot and characters, which could easily have been set in any neighbourhood, in any country, with potentially the same outcomes, so I’m not going to get too hung up about it.
When I finished reading, I was still none too sure about the title of book, as I failed to grasp the significance of it in relation to the overall storyline. The cover also didn’t resonate well with me either, as it didn’t really depict the style of house the narrative would have us believe the Warner family lived in, it was all in the detail!
‘The Wife In The Photo’ asks how far we will go for love, and what happens when we reach our limit?
Now I know what I can expect from this author, I have no hesitation in looking forward to reading a second book by her, which I have lined up on my Kindle.
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