MY LOVELY WIFE

by Samantha Downing

(Michael Joseph £12.99, 384 pp) It Is rare — and refreshing — that the storyteller in this slightly bonkers thriller is the male character: a handsome tennis coach, father of two and apparently conventional husband of a super- conventional estate agent, Millicent.

We meet him for the first time as he is pretending to be a deaf man called tobias, picking up a girl in a bar and using his phone to talk to her. soon, he is relaying the details of this rendezvous to Millicent. But just when you think this is some swinger’s story, the plot takes off in a really wild direction.

It does verge on crazy but, somehow, downing has the wit to pull it off and, in the process, creates a highly original and dark look at the shifting power structures in a modern marriage. a neighbourhood serial killer on the loose is an important part of the madness that makes this such a funny, smart book.