Fiction Review: The Woman in the Window

I've been hearing rave reviews of the best-selling psychological thriller, The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn, so I was excited to give it a try. My husband and I listened to the audio book on our road trip to Virginia last week and just finished it Monday night. We both enjoyed this suspenseful story that kept us guessing (mostly wrong!) until the very end.

Anna hasn't left her house in Harlem in 11 months. The reader/listener doesn't know exactly why, just that there was some kind of an accident, and now Anna is alone, with her husband and beloved daughter elsewhere, though she talks to them almost every day. Other than that, her only visitors are her therapist and physical therapist, but she stays busy online playing chess and helping others also suffering from agoraphobia in an online support group, since Anna herself used to work as a child psychologist. Anna's other main form of entertainment is watching her neighbors from her window, with the help of the zoom lens on her camera.

She is particularly interested in the new neighbors that just moved in across the street: Alistair, Jane, and Ethan Russell. Both Ethan, a teen boy who is homeschooled, and Jane have come to visit Anna separately, and Anna likes them both. Then, Anna sees a horribly violent scene at their house from her window. She reports it to the police, and they investigate, but no one believes Anna. After all, she drinks heavily, is taking piles of pills every day, and appears very unstable. The police try to convince her that she hallucinated the whole thing. So, what's the truth? Did it really happen? Did Anna imagine it? What is really going on across the street?

As you might have recognized, this story is loosely based on the same sort of concept as Hitchcock's  film Rear Window, and the author is a fan of classic noir films and imbues Anna with that same interest. The novel is filled with references to the black and white thrillers Anna is always watching, upping the tension of the story. My husband is one of those people that always guesses the ending to suspense and thriller books and movies - and he's almost always right - but this one stumped us both! There are lots of twists and turns in the plot and many unexpected surprises that keep the suspense level high. My husband also sometimes gets impatient with audio books on our trips, but this one kept his interest (and mine) from start to finish, and anytime we hopped in the car for even five minutes, we were listening to it! This dark and intricate thriller will keep suspense fans rapt.

448 pages, William Morrow

Disclosure: I received this book from the publisher in return for an honest review. My review is my own opinion and is not influenced by my relationship with the publisher or author.

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Listen to a sample of the audio book of The Woman in the Window here.

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