The Serial Killer’s Wife – Alice Hunter

Every marriage has its secrets…

Beth and Tom Hardcastle are the envy of their neighbourhood – they have the perfect marriage, the perfect house, the perfect family.

When the police knock on their door one evening, Beth panics. Tom should be back from work by now – what if he’s crashed his car? She fears the worst.

But the worst is beyond imagining.

As the interrogation begins, Beth will find herself questioning everything she believed about her husband.

They’re saying he’s a monster. And they’re saying she knew.

Book Information: Print Length: 382 pages. Publisher: Avon. Publication Date: 27 May 2021

Alice Hunter

About the Author: After completing a psychology degree, Alice Hunter became an interventions facilitator in a prison. There, she was part of a team offering rehabilitation programmes to men serving sentences for a wide range of offences, often working with prisoners who’d committed serious violent crimes. Previously, Alice had been a nurse, working in the NHS. She now puts her experiences to good use in fiction. THE SERIAL KILLER’S WIFE draws heavily on her knowledge of psychology and the criminal mind

My Review:

I chose to read this book with a group of online readers on Facebook as part of a readalong and because I love anything to do with Serial Killers and unrealiable narrators, I knew this would be a good one.

The Serial Killer’s Wife is a new standalone, twisty, twisted psychological thriller that is guaranteed to keep you on your toes, spin your head a few times and keep you gripped from the opening chapter to the last.

Due to the book title, the reader assumes immediately that the story is about a woman whose husband is a serial killer, but the opening few chapters when we are introduced to Beth and Tom Hardcastle and their cute little toddler daughter Poppy are written in a way that you half hope you are wrong.

Beth is a devoted mother to Poppy and wife to Tom. A few years ago they moved to a tiny village near Banbury where Beth opened up her dream shop, a pottery cafe named Poppy’s Pottery Place, slowly she is establishing herself within the village community and starting to make friends. Tom works in banking and commutes everyday to London and whilst their lives are hectic on first impressions everything is seemingly perfect.

When Tom is late home from work one evening and two policemen turn up wanting to question him in relation to his ex-girlfriend who has been missing for 8 years, presumed dead, Beth’s world is turned upside down and inside out. What happened to this missing women? Why are the police questioning Tom? Why was Tom late home? These are questions that immediately spring to mind, but chapter after chapter more layers are appearing and more secrets are being revealed.

This is a brilliant story that kept me guessing throughout. I must admit I had my suspicions about halfway through the book, but just couldn’t work out the truth of what happened to the missing ex-girlfriend and whether Beth did know what her husband had done.

Very few books surprise me or leave me with a feeling of being cleverly duped so it was a pleasure to finish this book knowing that once again my amateur armchair detective skills are completely useless.

Fans of twisty, clever and well written thrillers should love this.

Rating: 5 out of 5.

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