The Couple Next Door Book Review

Shari Lapena's mystery, The Couple Next Door, is a must-read. This book is very suspenseful, with examples of ordinary people making terrible decisions. It's the ideal crime novel to read in your spare time.

Anne and Marco Conti appear to have everything. A loving relationship, an incredible home, and their lovely baby, Cora. But one night, while they're having dinner next door, a horrible crime is committed. Suspicion at once falls on the parents. But the truth is very complicated. What follows is the stressful unraveling of a family. Detective Rasbach is aware that the panicked couple are hiding something within their family. Anne and Marco each quickly find out that the other is maintaining secrets they've stored for years. The surprising reality will come unexpectedly.

Anne Conti is one of the fundamental characters in the story. She is a brand new mom who gave birth to a 6-month-old daughter, Cora. Anne is a fragile, harmless woman who trusts human beings quickly and believes any lie. She was diagnosed with postpartum depression, which has affected her marriage. Marco Conti is Anne's husband and one of the crucial characters in the story. He begins a small enterprise for designing and it grows in size as his father-in-law lends him a large sum of money. Marco appears to love his spouse and daughter and would do anything to lead them to happiness. He sets up a fake kidnapping of his daughter to receive more money for his business, but it goes terribly wrong. Cynthia is Anne and Marcos' neighbor, the person they were having dinner with on the night of the kidnapping. The two girls were good friends until Anne gave birth. Cynthia informed Anne and Marco they could not bring Cora over to dinner because she does not like kids. That appears to be part of a complicated plan devised by Anne's father, Richard Dries, who is having an affair with her. Cynthia blackmails Marco, in which she has a video of Marco having Cora and giving her to his friend in his garage. Finally, Anne kills Cynthia while she is over at her house to inform her that blackmailing Marco is futile. Derek Honig (Bruce Neeland) is the person who Richard Dries employed to falsely befriend Marco and entice him into asking for cash from Richard. When Richard refuses, Derek recommends kidnapping Cora. He becomes Marcos' companion and is always referred to as Bruce Neeland. Later on, Derek is killed by Richard. Richard Dries is Anne's father and the mastermind behind the abduction plan. He desired to do all of this to get his wife’s money because most of it was hers. He made Marco look like the principal victim. Throughout the book, Richard attempts to make Anne hate her husband and divorce him because he looked down on Marco and observed him as a failure. Alice is Anne’s mom and a totally healthy woman. She notices that her husband is having an affair and hires a personal detective to track him down. The tracker leads the police to the truth that Richard killed Derek and was likely the mastermind of the kidnapping.

This book has three main themes. The first one is that money can not buy happiness. Marco and Richard both kept an eye out for money, believing that it would provide them with eternal bliss. Marco realized that money had made him a criminal who had been involved in the kidnapping of his daughter. He recognized at that point that working hard for his business, even if he didn't make a lot of money, would provide him with the satisfaction and enjoyment of accomplishing something. Richard, on the other hand, was desperate for cash and intended to deceive his son-in-law, kidnap his granddaughter, and take his wife's assets. He believed that this would make him happy, and that he would eventually leave his wife and move to Cynthia. His plan was eventually revealed, and he was apprehended by the authorities. This demonstrates that money is not everything in life. The second one is honesty. Throughout the novel, various couples were unfaithful to one another, resulting in a slew of problems. The most obvious example is Marco and Anne, who both kept secrets from each other, the most notable of which were Marco's business struggles and Anne's mental condition of losing reality in extremely stressful situations. If Marco had been truthful, none of this would have happened. If he had told Anne everything, she would have assisted him and been patient as he went through it. Cynthia is another example, as she has lied to Graham, (her husband), on practically every occasion. It appears like she married him to hide her foolishness rather than out of love. In addition, dishonesty has harmed Richard and Alice's relationship. Richard is solely interested in making money, so he doesn't tell Alice anything. Finally, deception. There were significant and minor deception situations throughout the story. The main one was Richard's lying, which was the central theme of the story. Richard fooled practically everyone in his life, including his wife, daughter, and son-in-law. He convinced everyone that Marco was the only kidnapper and that Richard was the good guy. Richard also killed his partner-in-crime, Derek, in order to keep all of the money for himself. Another deception left unresolved in the novel is whether Derek attempted to deceive Marco and Richard and steal the money. By the middle of the story, when the readers realize Marco is the kidnapper, Marco's deception about Anne is clear.

This is a book I would recommend. I would recommend it primarily to those who enjoy a twisty, roller coaster of lies and secrets between husbands and wives in this domestic thriller debut about a young couple and their seemingly friendly neighbors.