Playing Nice
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4.2 • 31 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
A couple's pleasant little life is upended by the revelation that their son was switched at birth in this gripping psychological thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of The Girl Before.
Pete Riley stays at home; his partner, Maddie, is the breadwinner. He spends his days browsing parenting blogs, where no concern is too trivial, and pacifying their rambunctious son, Theo.
Then, one day, a knock at the door. Miles and Lucy, a posh and near-perfect couple, tell Pete something shocking: Theo isn't his son. Their children were switched at the hospital.
At first, the couples are determined to reach a mutual agreement. They're all nice, rational people--surely they can sort this out between them. But soon their precarious arrangement--of babysitting, play dates and shared parenthood--begins to erode under the weight of perceived slights, hidden anxieties and petty jealousies.
It isn't long before Miles reveals himself to be cold, commanding and aggressive. When he brings a custody case against the Rileys, suddenly their parenting abilities are under suspicion and their private lives become ammunition. That's when their damaging secrets are exposed, their relationship tested to its breaking point.
They might teach their son to share and behave, to say "please" and "thank you," but when it comes to protecting their little family, Pete and Maddie are through with playing nice.
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
Unputdownable
This book had a chokehold on me from chapter one. The story is unbelievable, I could simply not put it down. The twist toward the end had me floored. 10 stars.