REVIEW: The Loving Husband by Christobel Kent
You know from the moment you even glance at the cover that this book is going to be special. That bed sheet in a messy disarray, the bloody letters, the fact that it's by Christobel Kent, author of The Crooked House. It screams: IF YOU LIKED THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN OR BEFORE I GO TO SLEEP THEN YOU WILL LOVE THIS. And it's right. If you loved The Girl on the Train or The Liar's Chair or Before I Go to Sleep then you will love this book. It's addictive and jumpy and compelling. My only criticism is that it doesn't offer really anything new to the domestic noir genre. In fact, if I'm being completely honest, it does, as much as I hate to admit it, slightly exhausts it.
It was Gone Girl that began the craze of the marriage-gone-bad. It was The Girl on the Train that added the perspectives of people affected by a disappearance and murder and it was I Let You Go that took away the marriage side to the genre and instead turned to domestic abuse and to look at the different sides to victimisation in a tragedy. But, for me, The Loving Husband will always just be another book in that genre. It doesn't really contribute anything, allbeit a brilliant book, but a book that's beginning to show the cracks, the withering of this craze. That's not necessarily the fault of the book itself - any book within this genre could have fallen to the same fate. But someone needs to kick this genre up a notch. Now that we've had some really interesting insights and perspectives, we need something more, something out there, something that will hook and drag you across the floor. Literally. And unfortunately I don't think The Loving Husband is it.
The Loving Husband follows Fran, a woman who abandoned her life in London to move with her recent husband Nathan to Oakenham, which we gather is somewhere north of London - near Cambridge I think. The book begins one night when she goes out into the night and discovers her husband dead in a ditch. What unfurls is a story of paranoia, suspicion and a lot of dickish men - which was also quite an entertaining point - as Fran begins to realise that she never really knew her seemingly loving husband at all.
Having said that the book is exhausting the genre is slightly harsh, because the plot is addictive. The words fall along the page like dominoes. The book was like a rollercoaster throwing you from one red herring to another. Just when you think you've managed to grasp who it could be it completely jetisons you off course which, for me, is the sign of a good story. Plot is essential and a good plot is hard to comeby. With this book, you don't stand a chance. Your neck aches afterwards with the thrill, but it's a good thing. You don't mind. You feel satisfied. It's an easy pleasurable read. You don't come away feeling like a soggy, deflated balloon, that's for sure.
I would recommend this book more to people that perhaps haven't ventured into the domestic noir, psychological thriller genre before. I think it's a good opener and taster for the genre to lure you into more complex plots rather than a book to continue your craze, and it's also an easy, enjoyable, addictive read.
The Loving Husband hits stores on the 7th April 2016. You can pre-order your copy here.