Woman driven to brink of madness in gripping thriller

Everyone goes through a night or two — or more — of sleeplessness. Those infrequent bouts of insomnia may have you looking up a new tomato sauce recipe or Googling an old TV show cast or obsessing over minor incidents of the day.

Attorney Emma Averell is experiencing the worst round of sleeplessness ever in the tense “Insomnia,” British author Sarah Pinborough’s gripping psychological domestic thriller. It’s not the lying awake night after night that bothers Emma. It’s that she fears she’s following a pattern set by her mother — insomnia resulting in a psychotic breakdown just before she turned 40.

Because of her mother’s insanity, Emma and her older sister, Phoebe, were put into separate foster homes. While Emma’s life turned out well — thriving career, including being up for partner in her firm, a solid marriage, two children — Phoebe has always floundered, adrift through careers and relationships.

“Insomnia” begins 12 days before Emma turns 40, when each night is an endless battle of wakefulness, tossing and turning, checking and rechecking that the doors are locked, compulsively looking in on her children, Chloe,

17, and Will, 5. On good nights, she may fall asleep an hour before she’s due at her office in Leeds, England.

Then, Phoebe, with whom Emma has been estranged for years, reappears. Phoebe insists that Emma visit their mother, who has just tried to kill herself in the mental hospital she’s been in for 30 years. However, Emma has told her family and coworkers that her mother died decades before.

“Insominia” successfully combines domestic suspense with a psychological thriller as Pinborough delves into Emma’s psyche, showing her fears, flaws and family concerns. Her exhaustion catches up with her as her career falters. Her husband, Robert, begins to balk at continuing to be a stay-athome father, and appears to resent that Emma’s salary supports the family. Her children begin to have issues.

Then she becomes a suspect in a murder. Emma is torn between believing her mental state is fragile and wondering if someone is gaslighting her.

Pinborough’s skill at showing characters at their best and worst is a mainstay of her some 20 novels, which include “Behind

Her Eyes,” currently a Netflix series.

MARTIN GODWIN Sarah Pinborough’s new novel is“Insomnia.”

By Sarah Pinborough. Morrow, 336 pages, $27.99