Undertow
Do you really know your husband? Submerge yourself in this chilling domestic thriller
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
My husband's lover. They said her death was a tragic accident. And I believed them . . . until now.
Carmen is happily married to Tom, a successful London lawyer and divorcé with three children. She is content to absorb the stresses of being a stepmother to teenagers and the stain of 'second wife'. She knows she'll always live in the shadow of another woman - not Tom's first wife Laura, who is resolutely polite and determinedly respectable, but the lover that ended his first marriage: Zena. Zena who was shockingly beautiful. Zena who drowned swimming late one night.
But Carmen can overlook her husband's dead mistress . . . until she starts to suspect that he might have been the person who killed her.
'Absolutely gripping, I raced through Undertow at the speed of knots' Rosamund Lupton.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
The “domestic noir” genre continues to flourish. Journalist Elizabeth Heathcote’s first novel is a fine, taut addition: a psychological thriller that allowed barely a moment’s rest before asking us to question everything we think we know. about its characters. We’re asked to figure out Carmen’s charming husband Tom. He’s a man with serious baggage—he has an ex-wife and three children but it's the spectre of an ex-girlfriend who drowned near his holiday home that presents constant suspicion. The winding, tense route to the truth is richly rewarding.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Echoes of Daphne du Maurier's classic Rebecca reverberate throughout British author Heathcote's impressive debut. Londoners Carmen and Tom Cawton, who have been happily married for two years, talk about having a child while weathering the challenges of frequent weekend visits with Tom's three children from his first marriage to Laura. Those visits usually occur at their second home, a beach bungalow in the Norfolk village of St. Jude's that Tom once co-owned with his one-time mistress, Zena Johnson. Three years earlier, Zena disappeared after going for a swim. Days later her body washed up a mile from the bungalow. St. Jude's is a gossipy place, and Carmen hears a rumor that some people think Tom murdered Zena. Carmen's curiosity about Zena turns into an obsession. She snoops through Tom's possessions and relentlessly compares herself to the charismatic Zena with her film-star looks, causing friction in her marriage. The intense psychological thriller is strengthened by an evocative isolated setting that seems ruled by Zena's ghost.
