Pretty Little Wife

I budgeted two weeks to read Pretty Little Wife, which is funny because I devoured it in two days. I don’t want to say too much but this book has it all, including a protagonist who is keeping secrets and characters who all—for some reason or another—fall under suspicion, and maybe not even for the murder. We (may) already know who did that.

Lila Ridgefield isn’t who she says she is, but that doesn’t make her unreliable. It means she hasn’t told us all of her secrets yet. But one secret we know right away: Lila killed her husband Aaron, setting it up to look like a suicide. Much to her surprise, his body immediately goes missing. Did Aaron really die? If so, then who moved him? Suddenly, all hell has broken loose.

This is the type of thriller I love the most: A taut domestic suspense with just a shade of police procedural woven in. There are so many layers and so many questions about marriage, shame, and the power dynamics that animate our most dysfunctional relationships. Through it all, Pretty Little Wife asks: How far would you go to right a wrong?

Lila Ridgefield lives in an idyllic college town, but not everything is what it seems. Lila isn’t what she seems. A student vanished months ago. Now, Lila’s husband, Aaron, is also missing. At first these cases are treated as horrible coincidences until it’s discovered the student is really the third of three unexplained disappearances over the last few years. The police are desperate to find the connection, if there even is one. Little do they know they might be stumbling over only part of the truth….

With the small town in an uproar, everyone is worried about the whereabouts of their beloved high school teacher. Everyone except Lila, his wife. She’s definitely confused about her missing husband but only because she was the last person to see his body, and now it’s gone.