Shari Lapena | A STRANGER IN THE HOUSE

Plot:

Karen and Tom Krupp are happy—they’ve got a lovely home in upstate New York, they’re practically newlyweds, and they have no kids to interrupt their comfortable life together. But one day, Tom returns home to find Karen has vanished—her car’s gone and it seems she left in a rush. She even left her purse—complete with phone and ID—behind.

There's a knock on the door—the police are there to take Tom to the hospital where his wife has been admitted. She had a car accident, and lost control as she sped through the worst part of town.
The accident has left Karen with a concussion and a few scrapes.  Still, she’s mostly okay—except that she can’t remember what she was doing or where she was when she crashed. The cops think her memory loss is highly convenient, and they suspect she was up to no good. 
Karen returns home with Tom, determined to heal and move on with her life. Then she realizes something’s been moved. Something’s not quite right. Someone’s been in her house. And the police won't stop asking questions.
Because in this house, everyone’s a stranger. Everyone has something they’d rather keep hidden. Something they might even kill to keep quiet.


Review:

The title, the plot, the characters, and the return of Detective Rasbach from THE COUPLE NEXT DOOR all scream Lapena. While familiarizing myself with her debut novel, I was eager to start this one. The opening had me highly intrigue, but unfortunately this one didn't keep my interest as well as Lapena's first novel. 

As the novel began, I found myself diving headfirst and really excited to get to the bottom of what was going on and unfortunately, most of my guesses were correct. To avoid spoilers, there's not much I can say when a novel starts off so exciting and then slowly declines as I read it which is unfortunate given her debut novel was the complete opposite for me. The return of the detective from the first novel was the peak of this one as I really liked his badass character who looks at everyone as a suspect and leaves no stone unturned. 

While I enjoyed the plot and it kept me interested enough to complete this novel, that was the only highlight for me. I wanted to know what happened. I wanted to know who was guilty. I wanted to know what happened that night. While the suspense was at a minimum, I was expecting a lot of twists and turns and shocks to keep this one going, but I was only left with a surprising last ten pages that I didn't see coming. I almost felt while reading this one that someone hired a ghost writer to take a brilliant and suspenseful plot that Lapena had come up with and ultimately failed at bringing the high tension and spookiness of her debut to the table with this one. The plot was there, the character outlines were there, but ultimately the writing seemed flat and unfinished.

Not all of this one was bad. At the end of the day, Lapena can write the hell out of a femme fatale and really build a plot that keeps the reader interested and is unlike anything else out there. While I was finding myself easily distracted throughout this one, I still found myself enjoying the characters and where the plot was heading even if I guessed what would happen during a good 85% of this one. 

The opening caught my eye, the bulk of the novel piqued my interest but didn't allow me to fully immerse myself into it, and the ending was good enough to leave me satisfied and happy that this didn't make it to my empty and dreaded "Did Not Finish" shelf. While being a huge fan of Lapena's debut novel, I would almost recommend reading them backwards if it hadn't been for the return of one of my favorite detectives, even if the stories don't have any connection other than Detective Rasbach. Hopefully Lapena will really knock my socks off with her third novel. I haven't given up yet. At the end of the day, this may still be an enjoyable read for fans of Lapena, but my recommendation would be to wait for paperback if you plan on checking this one out. 

Rating: 3/5