The Loving Husband - Cristobel Kent

Nicely tangled thriller here for fans of the genre - and very much better than many of them.

 

Fran is married to Nathan. Nathan "works in the building trade". Nathan has an office. Nathan is often off around the country on new projects. Nathan and Fran have two children, and Nathan is not very keen on sex. Two small children keep Fran busy, and in an old, grubby house, somewhere on the Fens it's hard to think much about the life she used to lead in London before Nathan persuaded her that a move to the country would suit them all.

But right at the beginning of the book we can see very quickly that things are not going to plan. Fran wakes in bed, just after midnight, and finds the other side of the bed empty and cold. She remembers him coming to bed, so what's the game then? A dreadful game, that's what, for within two pages we know he is dead, she has found him in a ditch outisde. Two male police detectives are convinced she did it, and the Family Liaison Officer thinks that she didn't. Fran herself begins to wonder if all she knew about her husband was right, and true. She has no proof either way, but from his past, lots of other people gradually enable her to form a picture of what he might have been - although Christobel Kent will keep you waiting until the last chapter to solve this excellent thriller.

Nicely woven, you are never sure how guilty anyone might be. There are plenty of times when you might say aah, of course, only to find a few chapters on that it was not the case at all. A good thriller has to have a believable story, but most of all a very believable end and this book has that. Set in a rural area where nothing much happens, with a couple of policemen who have their own axe to grind, and a woman who thought she knew what was was, I hope this will keep you turning the pages as it did for me.