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Instant #1 New York Times Bestseller
"Astounding. Thrilling. Amazing." --Gillian Flynn
"Unputdownable." --Stephen King
"A dark, twisty confection." -- Ruth Ware
"Absolutely gripping." -- Louise Penny
For readers of Gillian Flynn and Tana French comes one of the decade's most anticipated debuts, to be published in thirty-six languages around the world and already in development as a major film from Fox: a twisty, powerful Hitchcockian thriller about an agoraphobic woman who believes she witnessed a crime in a neighboring house.
It isn't paranoia if it's really happening . . .
Anna Fox lives alone--a recluse in her New York City home, unable to venture outside. She spends her day drinking wine (maybe too much), watching old movies, recalling happier times . . . and spying on her neighbors.
Then the Russells move into the house across the way: a father, mother, their teenaged son. The perfect family. But when Anna, gazing out her window one night, sees something she shouldn't, her world begins to crumble'and its shocking secrets are laid bare.
What is real? What is imagined? Who is in danger? Who is in control? In this diabolically gripping thriller, no one--and nothing--is what it seems.
Twisty and powerful, ingenious and moving, The Woman in the Window is a smart, sophisticated novel of psychological suspense that recalls the best of Hitchcock.
BONUS: Includes an interview with author A.J. Finn.
Reviews (2)
Guardian Review
What is the price to be paid for lifelong social activism? Thats the question posed by Eva Dolans This Is How It Ends (Raven, £12.99). Molly is an old-school campaigner whose life has been dedicated to everything from the Greenham Common peace camp in the 1980s and 90s to opposing the gentrification of a semi-derelict tower block in the present day. She has become a kind of surrogate mother to the youthful Ella, similarly known to the police after her involvement in demonstrations touched by violence. And an act of violence drives the women even closer together, when Molly helps her friend conceal the accidental death of a man who assaulted her. After they dispose of his corpse in a lift shaft, retribution begins to close like a steel trap around the women. Dolan is expert at the orchestration of tension, right up to the vertiginous climax. This first stand-alone novel her earlier work featured hate-crime coppers Zigic and Ferreira also adds a new layer to the authors trenchant social commentary. While the authorities are presented in unsympathetic fashion, Mollys unending crusades over a variety of issues have not filled the void in her life that initially propelled her along this path. Dolan seems to suggest that organic human interaction is preferable to a lifetime of battling for right-on causes. Ask aficionados who is Britains finest thriller writer, and many would answer the veteran Gerald Seymour, whose career has spanned four decades. Though his recent work has lacked rigour, A Damned Serious Business (Hodder, £17.99) sees him once again firing on all cylinders. With customary topicality, the new book presents Russian hackers as the frontline warriors in a new cold war. With Russian electoral interference on both sides of the Atlantic, MI6 case officer Edwin Coker initiates the disruption of this secret operation, not with a computer virus but a bomb, delivered across the border by a young criminal hacker suborned by MI6. He is to be shepherded by the seasoned soldier Merc: the hazardous mission is palm-sweatily convincing. The German writer Dirk Kurbjuweit has frequently interviewed politicians such as Angela Merkel, but its the personal rather than the political that powers Fear (translated by Imogen Taylor, Orion, £12.99). Kurbjuweit, deputy editor-in-chief of Der Spiegel, transmutes into fiction the real-life experiences of his own family, victims of a stalker who was careful to keep within the law. We first encounter Berlin architect Randolph Tiefenthaler sitting with his father in prison: the latter has killed the tenant of the basement below his sons upscale apartment, the unstable Tiberius, who has sexually harassed Randolphs wife and accused the couple of abusing their children. Tiberius, a beneficiary of Germanys welfare system, was protected from eviction, and as he grew more threatening, bloodshed became inevitable. But is the cold-blooded execution carried out by Randolphs father all that it appears to be? While the tenser sections of the novel are handled efficiently enough, the real interest lies in the astringent picture of middle-class German society, with its schism between the haves and have-nots, something weve not seen before in contemporary crime fiction. Hitchcocks Rear Window is a gift that keeps on giving, from Paula Hawkinss The Girl on the Train to the latest riff, The Woman in the Window (HarperCollins, £12.99) by AJ Finn. As with Hawkins, we have a booze-addicted woman with a dysfunctional life, Dr Anna Fox. When not watching Hitchcock films (Finn is refreshingly open about the source of his inspiration), Anna uses the zoom lens of her camera to spy on the comfortable life of her neighbours, the Russells. But as is de rigueur for this subgenre Anna observes something horrific and is confronted with the inevitable question: will anyone believe her? Finn does not attempt to conceal the shopworn elements, but confronts them head-on and rings some bracing changes. A J Finn is really Dan Mallory, a US publisher who knows just what makes popular thrillers work. How would it feel to be trapped within ones own body, able to see, smell and hear but unable to communicate? If I Die Before I Wake by Emily Koch (Harvill Secker, £12.99) is audaciously told from the point of view of Alex, a victim of locked-in syndrome after an accident. Initially yearning for death, Alex then tries to discover what has happened to him; he is perhaps solving his own murder. Its a clever premise, and though Koch takes her time before really getting to grips with the material, this is a debut to be reckoned with. - Barry Forshaw.
New York Review of Books Review
A damsel in distress can be a poor narrator. How to convey the magnitude of her troubles without letting her descend into irritating selfpity? Finn tackles this contradiction brilliantly, especially given his agoraphobic heroine's situation. Anna Fox is confiding and breezy, but not brittle. The conversations presented here as amusing really do amuse. Yet the fear is always there. Anna, a gentrifier in Harlem, spends a lot of time watching old movies and looking out her window. Separated by her illness from her husband and daughter, she's alone nearly all the time. But since she's a trained psychologist, she has eased into helping fellow sufferers online. Perky with her clients, she's less so in her asides to the reader, especially when she's rattling off the names of all the pills she adds to her incessant wine drinking. Eventually, Anna trains her professionally keen attention on some of her neighbors, members of a family that has moved into a townhouse across the way. As, one by one, they start to visit her, disturbingly different versions of their lives are on offer. Sometimes "The Woman in the Window" seems like a freshly warped version of an old mystery play, with its repeated entrances and exits on a single stage. Late at night, awash in pills and alcohol, Anna is sure she has seen a stabbing. Finn signals a key development ahead of time, but that doesn't soften the punch when it comes. Plenty of revelations ensue, and as they pile up the reader feels them right along with Anna.
