Couple Next Door (Lapena) - Book Reviews

Book Reviews
The tale of a child stolen from its cot is full of suspense but promises more than it delivers.... [T]he set-up is fantastic – it’s just when Lapena has to deliver on the answers that the novel starts to slip. Without giving anything away, the big reveal feels like a bit of a letdown. Although I continued at a breakneck pace to the end, keen to see if Lapena would recover the tension she’d built up so well, it never quite recovered.
Alison Flood - Guardian (UK)


The twists come as fast [as] you can turn the pages.
People


[S]uspenseful, heart-wrenching.... Could the couple be covering up a kidnapping? Rasbach and Jennings suspect that they’re withholding something.... After numerous twists and turns, just when everything appears to be resolved, Lapena delivers one final, deftly crafted surprise.
Publishers Weekly


Brisk prose style and character development are almost beside the point in Lapena’s suspense-fiction debut; this is a plot-driven page-turner, and even the most character-focused readers will find it hard to put down.
Booklist


[A] paint-by-numbers police investigation, led by the personality-free Detective Rasbach, who seems to cycle through potential theories...the same way Lapena must have in her early plotting stages, except it all ended up on the page. When it's clear, or at least partially clear, what happened...any remaining tension hisses out like a pricked balloon.
Kirkus Reviews