Alice Feeney’s latest thriller My Husband’s Wife is a tense, twisty, thrill-a-chapter read

Domestic noir’s Queen of Twists in fine form

Feeney is perfectly at home in wrecked — or soon-to-be-wrecked — households marked by tumultuous pasts, hidden secrets and shady characters. These elements form the backbone of her fast-paced, suspense-heavy novels, whose defining feature is a series of twists most readers will not see coming. It is no surprise she has earned the sobriquet “Queen of Twists” for her ability to repeatedly turn a story on its head.

Unsurprisingly, twists and turns abound in My Husband’s Wife. The novel is classic Feeney: just over 300 pages long, divided into 70 short chapters, with no two consecutive chapters sharing the same narrator. Timelines constantly shift, and almost every chapter ends with some form of revelation. “Before I even knew what I was doing, I kissed her. And now she’s dead,” is one such ending. Another closes with a character taking a hot bath and noticing a single word appear in the steam on the mirror: Liar.

It is the sort of book readers who enjoy their fiction laced with suspense and surprise will race through in a couple of days.

Mixed identities, remixed narrators

Alice Feeney is the bestselling author of eight novels. (Source: alicefeeney.com)

The novel begins with what appears to be a crisis of identity, with two women claiming to be the same person. As with most of Feeney’s work, this is merely the tip of the iceberg. As the story unfolds, readers encounter a mysterious company that claims it can predict the time of one’s death; a young girl confined to a special institution as she recovers from an accident that has robbed her of speech; a couple bent on revenge for a past wrong; and a police officer racing to solve a case while settling old scores and cheating impending death.

Rarely does a chapter pass without a new layer being added — to a character, or to the plot itself. A character turns out to be married; another is revealed to have been impersonating someone else. By the end, no fewer than five narrators recount the story from their own perspectives, often from different points in time. Midway through, the book also shifts gears, moving from a domestic mystery into something resembling a police procedural.

In less capable hands, this would be a recipe for narrative confusion. Feeney, however, proves remarkably adept at weaving complex plots while demonstrating an unsettling understanding of human relationships. She switches perspectives smoothly and often draws readers into empathising with a narrator — only for the next voice to sharply undermine that sympathy.

A page-turner for domestic noir fans

As she brings the strands together, Feeney also delivers some striking prose. She has a knack for making profound observations without unnecessary complexity, focusing more on psychological turmoil than on social commentary or elaborate scene-setting.

The plot is not entirely watertight — the assumption that a police officer can simply walk into a station and take charge without proving identity or documentation feels weak — but Feeney’s fluid narration keeps the story moving at breakneck speed. Revelation follows revelation, and most of them, including the final denouement, are genuinely surprising. We were riveted to the end, which is no small achievement.

Readers who prefer classic thrillers with measured pacing may bristle at the constant shifts in perspective and the barrage of revelations. Still, My Husband’s Wife is an ideal weekend read for suspense lovers — provided they do not plan on getting much sleep. Do not start it if you have work the next morning.

My Husband’s Wife
Alice Feeney
Pan Macmillan
320 pages
Rs 699