STRANGER than fiction
A SOCIAL-MEDIA MYSTERY FOR THE DIGITAL AGE
Generally with thrillers and whodunits, I’m the worst at solving the mystery, but with this book I began to guess quite early on at least a part of what was going to happen. Not that it completely spoiled the story, as there was still plenty of interest in seeing how things played out.
This is very much a tale that could only happen in the digital age. Charlie is an aspiring actress whose career isn’t going well. Fortunately, she is married to the gorgeous and wealthy Oliver – they are so blissfully in love they even have their own hashtag #charlieandollieforever.
Oliver has a job in finance that Charlie doesn’t entirely understand, but he does a lot of overseas travel and she has noticed he seems more stressed lately.
One day she is hanging out with a girlfriend and watching as she swipes through a dating app, when a familiar face catches her eye – yes, it’s her husband. She even recognises the photo as one she took on their honeymoon.
Devastated, Charlie makes the obvious assumption that her husband is cheating on her. She signs up to the dating app and creates a fake identity in a bid to catch him out, and sure enough they make a connection. It seems as if life has hit rock bottom when, in fact, things are about to get a whole lot worse.
Like this author’s debut novel, Sunday Girl, this is a relationship-based revenge story written in a perky, youthful style. But it’s way more believable – social media has left us vulnerable in all sorts of ways that the plot cleverly exploits – and as she tries to make sense of what is happening to her,
Charlie is a gutsier, more likable heroine.
For lovers of twisty, fastpaced, modern thrillers, The Strangers We Know ticks a lot of boxes. Even though you may work out what is happening, you’ll still have to keep turning those pages to discover why.