The Perfect Wife, by Blake Pierce

ISBN: 9781640296626
Amazon ID: B07JYC69YM

[Note: not the same title by JP Delaney; read that, it's excellent.]

Several words in the English language start with "psycho" (my copy of the OED lists 113 of them). Some of the possible endings relevant to this book (in alphabetical, rather than significant, order) are:

• analyst
• logist
• path
• sis
• therapist
• tic

I won't tell you which word/s apply (in my opinion) to which character/s.

Some people are control freaks, but some of them are also nutters. That's what we seem to have here. Not a good combination.

You live in a 30-year old house, hear strange noises, and put it down to "typical house settling". How long do you think it takes for a house to "settle"?

It's nice to get the Clarice Starling reference explicitly out of the way in chapter 6 before it becomes obvious by chapter 12 (of 33).

Also, the author seems especially fond of throwing food away. Maybe it's common practice where he comes from.

The first third (or thereabouts) of the book consists of setting the scenes and establishing the characters. Once the story reaches NRD it starts getting "interesting". The chapter involving Interpol was a little too obvious for my liking, but once we get to ¾ through the book, the action certainly kicks in.

All in all, my opinion is "pretty good", although I have to say that the final four words spoiled the story for me.

The Perfect Wife turns out to be the first part of (for now, anyway) a trilogy, being followed by The Perfect Block and The Perfect House.

I don't plan to read them, for the time being at least. If I feel like more of this approximate genre, I'll stick to JP Delaney.

In chapter 14, someone is heading along a corridor looking for the entrance to a toilet described as being "down at the end of the hall. When you see the swinging door, make a left".

It's not clear whether this means "turn left before the swing door" (ie: as soon as you see it) or "turn left after the swing door" (ie: once you've gone through it), so the person continues through the door, realises that there's no door on the left anywhere nearby, and turns back the way they came.

The problem with the narrative is that they then "pushed through the swinging door and moved left", where the toilet indeed turns out to be.

If you retrace your steps, what was to the left on your way there is generally to be found on your right on the way back.

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