In the evening she chats with her estranged husband and daughter, begging him to come back and being reminded that he's gone, the marriage is over and that 'too much contact' is to be avoided. The rest of her day is spent glugging merlot, playing chess online and doing a bit of desultory doctoring for people in an agoraphobia chatroom. Affairs, fights, sobs, dinners, sex, Anna watches it all, killing time, creating storylines. Anna knows all her neighbours, not that she visits or even calls them – but she spends her days viewing them, intimately, with her trusty Nikon's zoom lens. She is alone with a cat, and a hunky tenant in the basement apartment. Anna Fox, once a prominent child psychologist, now an agoraphobic, alcoholic recluse, holed up in her handsome house in a nice Harlem neighbourhood with a small park. The central character, really the only character, is Dr. He's much more in tune with the intense characters of Minette Walters or Frances Fyfield. It's here, in that slow buildup, that Finn/Mallory shows his real talent. What this is is an intelligent, carefully constructed novel of psychological suspense that focuses on a single character whose moods, secrets and fears drive the plot. I guessed the one real mystery many pages ahead and I think most readers will also. There are no flashy shocks or unexpected twists. But this isn't The Girl on the Train or Gone Girl or The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo or any other girl book.

The Woman in the Window is his tribute to both genres and, let me say outright, he does them credit, which I did not expect. Finn turns out to be the nom de plume for Daniel Mallory, an executive editor at Morrow, the book's publisher, with a special interest in mysteries and film noir.

Finn favours that, he/she must have something on the ball.Ī.J. The epigraph is from the old film noir Shadow of a Doubt, one of my favourites. So I approach The Woman in the Window (even the title is suspect) with suspicion. 'Insiders' all too often put together a batch of what the public buys into a potboiled mess and then market it as caviar. The ancient joke about Abraham Lincoln's doctor's dog dances in my head. Finn is 'one of us' – that is, a publishing insider. Finn, a complete unknown, with a front cover spouting: 'It isn't paranoia if it's really happening.' An inside letter touts publishing gold: 'Sold for record advances in 35 countries,' and film rights pre-emptively sold with 'A-list actresses clamouring for the role.' Along with the usual plaudits from known authors – Gillian Flynn, Louise Penny – and the essential reference to The Girl on the Train, we get the unhappy news (to a reviewer) that A.J.

Book woman in the window