A Stranger in the House – Shari Lapena

Summary

Karen and Tom Krupp are happy—they’ve got a lovely home in upstate New York, they’re practically newlyweds, and they have no kids to interrupt their comfortable life together. But one day, Tom returns home to find Karen has vanished—her car’s gone and it seems she left in a rush. She even left her purse—complete with phone and ID—behind.

There’s a knock on the door—the police are there to take Tom to the hospital where his wife has been admitted. She had a car accident, and lost control as she sped through the worst part of town.

The accident has left Karen with a concussion and a few scrapes. Still, she’s mostly okay—except that she can’t remember what she was doing or where she was when she crashed. The cops think her memory loss is highly convenient, and they suspect she was up to no good.

Karen returns home with Tom, determined to heal and move on with her life. Then she realizes something’s been moved. Something’s not quite right. Someone’s been in her house. And the police won’t stop asking questions.

Because in this house, everyone’s a stranger. Everyone has something they’d rather keep hidden. Something they might even kill to keep quiet.

Review

Ok, Shari Lapena! No wrongs, no faults. Love a title that is clever, clever, clever!

Well, I guess just one: I hope in Shari’s head the final fate of the characters is what I want it to be because, even though, I must admit, the foreshadowing of the end finishes the book beautifully, I just can’t help wanting my bad-behaved characters to win in the end.

My god, what a book that was. This was my first Shari Lapena book, and I wanted to read something of hers last year before Everyone Here is Lying hit the shelves (which I still haven’t read lol), and this book definitely was the best choice ever, although I have a feeling that anything that I had chosen by her would have convinced me that she is brilliant.

I think we’ve established my love for antagonistic main/morally grey characters, so of course my favourite person was Karen Krupp. Is it really an unfortunate accident that made her have mild amnesia, or is everything all just too convenient? Hmmm.

Very fast-paced; finish the book in about 24 hours; if humans didn’t have to sleep, I would have definitely finished this way faster! But, oh well, more time with Shari Lapelna’s great writing, right?

Recommendation level: on par with how a kid would recommend ice cream and pizza for dinner.

Click for spoilers!

Before Karen and Tom met, Karen was married, but since her husband was abusive, she faked her death and ran away. Although the truth is that she did this because he was money laundering, she stole two million dollars from him. She then found Tom and fell in love. Tom and Brigid had an affair before the “accident.”

What actually happened the night of the accident was that Karen’s old husband finally found her, and she went to meet with him to then kill him. But Brigid followed her and witnessed everything. Karen dropped the gun after the murder, but Brigid planted it back at the Krupp house because she was obsessed with Tom and wanted him all to herself. During all of the investigation, Brigid was also blackmailing Tom into sleeping with her.

Brigid’s plan kind of backfired, and no one could actually be found guilty for the murder, so no one went to jail. The book ends with the revelation that Brigid got pregnant with Tom’s baby.