- Barbara Copperthwaite
Review: THE OTHER WIDOW, Susan Crawford
“A strong, thrilling set up that made me ask all kinds of questions”
THEY SAY
'We have to stop seeing each other . . . It isn't safe. For us.' He turns toward her, and even in the darkened car she sees his fear.
The affair is over. Moments later, Joe's car skids off an icy road. Desperate to keep her life intact, Dorrie runs from the wreckage - but now someone is calling her from his phone.
Joe's wife knew he was cheating. On her own in the wake of his death, Karen can't shake the feeling that someone is watching her.
Investigator Maggie Brennan is immediately suspicious of the life insurance claim following the crash. The policy was a recent purchase, and she doesn't believe in coincidences.
As the fates of these three women become more tightly entwined, they're brought closer to a terrifying truth.
I SAY
As soon as I read the start of The Other Widow, I was hooked. It was a strong, thrilling set up that made me ask all kinds of questions I was desperate to answer.
With three women’s stories playing out, there was plenty to get my teeth into. The investigator has a fascinating back story, and it felt as though this book was a set up so that she could then continue in follow-up stories. I hope so, as there is much more to explore about her. All the characters are believable and flawed, in fact, and I loved that a different font was used for each one. It was a subtle, almost subliminal, way of conveying the characters’ differing personalities.
There are a lot of characters to juggle in this book, though, as well as a habit of calling the insurance detective by both her first name and her last name. I’m not great with names, so other people may cope fine with that, but why make life harder for the poor reader?
If I’m honest, I failed to connect with this book properly, whether as a consequence of the volume of characters or something else, I’m not sure. I loved the premise, the entire set up was full of promise. But although it was an interesting book, with twists and turns, and plenty going on, it didn’t capture me in the way I had thought it would. It was intriguing enough that I had to keep reading on to find out who had done what and why, but the ending failed to live up to the promise of the intriguing and heart-pounding start.