Playing Nice
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4.2 • 130 Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
THE SENSATIONAL NEW PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER FROM THE INTERNATIONALLY BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE GIRL BEFORE
'The kind of book that keeps you up at night' My Weekly
'Utterly terrifying and compelling' Stephanie Wrobel
'JP Delaney is King of Thrillers and Playing Nice is his best book yet' Fiona Cummins
'There is a precision about Delaney's characters that propels his twisty plots into unexpected and utterly convincing scenarios' Daily Mail
Pete Riley answers the door one morning to a parent's worst nightmare. On his doorstep is Miles Lambert, who breaks the devastating news that Pete's two-year-old, Theo, isn't Pete's real son - their babies got mixed up at birth.
The two families - Pete, his partner Maddie, and Miles and his wife Lucy - agree that, rather than swap the boys back, they'll try to find a more flexible way to share their children's lives. But a plan to sue the hospital triggers an investigation that unearths disturbing questions about just what happened the day the babies were switched.
And when Theo is thrown out of nursery for hitting other children, Maddie and Pete have to ask themselves: how far do they want this arrangement to go? What secrets lie hidden behind the Lamberts' smart front door? How much can they trust the real parents of their child - or even each other?
An addictive psychological thriller, perfect for fans of The Silent Patient and Shari Lapena's The Couple Next Door.
See what everyone is saying about JP Delaney, the hottest name in psychological thrillers:
'DAZZLING' - Lee Child
'ADDICTIVE' - Daily Express
'DEVASTATING' - Daily Mail
'INGENIOUS' - New York Times
'COMPULSIVE' - Glamour Magazine
'ELEGANT' - Peter James
'SEXY' - Mail on Sunday
'ENTHRALLING' - Woman and Home
'ORIGINAL' - The Times
'RIVETING' - Lisa Gardner
'CREEPY' - Heat
'SATISFYING' - Reader's Digest
'SUPERIOR' - The Bookseller
'MORE THAN A MATCH FOR PAULA HAWKINS' - Sunday Times
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A nightmarish scenario drives this gripping psychological thriller from bestseller Delaney (The Perfect Wife). Freelance journalist Pete Riley, a stay-at-home dad, and his partner, Maddie Wilson, who works in advertising, live in Willesden Green, a middle-class London neighborhood, with their two-year-old son, Theo. One afternoon, Miles Lambert arrives at Pete's door and tells him, "Theo isn't your son. He's mine." Miles goes on to explain that their children were switched soon after birth, and the Lamberts are suing the hospital. Pete and Maddie agree to attempt an amicable solution and meet with Miles and his wife at their posh home in Highgate. But cruel, obsessive Miles files for custody of both children, and he's out to win at all costs. Everyone has secrets, and everyone has made mistakes that can be magnified in a courtroom battle. Then people connected with the case begin to die. Delaney skillfully gets inside his lead characters in alternating chapters narrated by Pete and by Maddie. Some genuinely surprising twists reveal just how far a parent will go for the sake of a child. This is domestic suspense at its most unsettling.
Customer Reviews
The complex horror of parenthood
As with all J P Delaney books, there is a lot of detail and research of the topics covered in this book. Again there is an Alpha Male psychopath. This one is called Miles Lambert who arrives on the doorstep with legal papers. The horrors start there, as Pete and Maddie navigate a very savvy, passive (and at times, not so passive) aggressive father through a hospital mix up etc. The ending is quite abrupt but satisfying. Enjoyed this book even if I found at times a little heavy on medical jargon etc. well worth a read!
🔅🔅
After loving the girl before I was excited to read another of this authors but I found this one hard to sink my teeth into and was frustrated with the characters