Published by Penguin

What if your life was built on a lie?

When lawyer Lily marries Ed, she’s determined to make a fresh start. To leave the secrets of the past behind.

But when she takes on her first criminal case, she starts to find herself strangely drawn to her client. A man who’s accused of murder. A man she will soon be willing to risk everything for.

But is he really innocent?

And who is she to judge?

MY HUSBAND’S WIFE is a thriller with so many twists you won’t be able to put it down, perfect for fans of Liane Moriarty, Clare Mackintosh and C. L. Taylor.

My Review

An intense psychological thriller, My Husband’s Wife, will keep you gripped to the very end. As with most good thrillers, the short prologue teases the reader by beginning with the end of the story:

Flash of metal. Thunder in my ears…My head is killing me…The pain in my chest is scary. So, too, is the blood…Can a marriage end in murder?… So it’s true what they say about dying. The past comes back to go with you.

This is then followed by several sentences of a newspaper article reporting the death of the artist Ed Macdonald. Stating he has been found stabbed to death, we are left in no doubt that this a tale of murder…or could it simply a case of self-defence? Full of suspense, including chilling insights into the human psyche, Corry skilfully leads the reader down a slippery path littered with intrigue and dramatic twists. We are told from the outset that this story ends with the death of one of its characters but by whom and most importantly – why?

A tale of two halves the story then begins fifteen years prior to the prologue where we are introduced to the two central characters, namely Lily, a fledgling solicitor and Carla, a young school girl and only child of her Italian single mother. Lily, narrated in the first person, is newly married to Ed, an artist, but it is immediately apparent, despite having recently returned from honeymoon, there are problems within the marriage. Lily, having recently been consigned to criminal law is then assigned with the management of an appeal case of a convicted murderer, where Lily, despite her better judgement, finds herself strangely drawn to her client. In the meantime, acting as well-meaning neighbours, Lily and Ed befriend Carla, written in the third person, and her mother. The young married couple agree to babysit Carla from time to time when her mother has to work and Carla finds herself becoming Ed’s muse for his artwork. The story then jumps forward twelve years. Lily is a successful solicitor specialising in criminal law, Ed is the efficacious artist of the painting of The Italian Girl and Lily, now a young woman studying law is hell-bent on revenge. However, as with all good thrillers, all is not as it seems.

This is a classic whodunit with many surprising twists and turns. Corry’s characters are well rounded and believable. At times I found myself liking and disliking them all in equal measure, despite their flaws and bad deeds, because, they are all typically human and as we all know, given the right circumstances, good people are capable of bad deeds just as bad people are capable of good ones. Corry also provides some well-researched insight into autism as well as some thought-provoking observations of suicide, adultery, unknown paternity, and adoption and, of course, murder. Definitely one I’d recommend.