Amy Lloyd | THE INNOCENT WIFE

Plot (via Goodreads):

Twenty years ago, Dennis Danson was arrested and imprisoned for the brutal murder of a young girl in Florida's Red River County. Now he's the subject of a true-crime documentary that's whipping up a frenzy online to uncover the truth and free a man who has been wrongly convicted.

A thousand miles away in England, Samantha is obsessed with Dennis's case. She exchanges letters with him, and is quickly won over by his apparent charm and kindness to her. Soon she has left her old life behind to marry him and campaign for his release.

But when the campaign is successful and Dennis is freed, Sam begins to discover new details that suggest he may not be quite so innocent after all ...

Review:

Like most of America, I was hooked the minute I began watching MAKING A MURDERER on Netflix. I became so invested in the case and was constantly trying to find out new information as the rest of America sank its teeth into this case. Reading THE INNOCENT WIFE was a similar feeling. There’s just something about crime and crime fiction that America loves/hates to hear about and I am one of those who can’t get enough. 

What I really enjoyed about this novel was the first half having tape recordings of conversations while our main character was interrogated twenty years ago, the media aspect surrounding this documentary, and the small excerpts from a novel written about our main character. It was so addicting reading about Samantha and Dennis an the crimes he's been convicted of through not only their eyes, but from a media perspective and Lloyd was on point when it came to how the public reacts to these types of crimes.

The second half of the book doesn't focus or include as much as the media, but is more of a character study of Dennis and his relationship with Samantha after he is released....including the demons he's brought back from prison. I was moving from addicted to obsessed with this novel. While I didn't care for the main character of Samantha, I loved reading about Dennis and watching him go back to his hometown after being accused of such terrible acts and Lloyd again did a spectacular job of helping me visualize this small town and the people who lived in it. 

The ending for me was haunting and dark, a delicious and insightful way to end what was a wild ride of a psychological thriller that I couldn't put down. I would definitely recommend this one to anyone who not only enjoys psychological thrillers, but the mystery surrounding missing people and how quickly things from the past we have long since buried can be dug up and displayed for all of America to see.

Special thanks to Hanover Square Press and Harper Collins for this novel in exchange for my honest review.

Rating: 4/5