The Wrong Mother
By Sophie Hannah
432 pages; Penguin

It was the shopping trip from hell: One minute she was elbowing her way through crowds, the next she was under the wheels of a bus. Who tried to kill Sally Thorning—growly, frazzled, exasperated working mother and wife—and what that had to do with Geraldine Bretherick, the apparent suicide who was Sally's doppelgänger, is one of many mysteries in The Wrong Mother, Sophie Hannah's irresistibly convoluted new thriller. Shockingly (and refreshingly) blunt riffs about the violent emotions of motherhood and the familial yearnings of men, along with chilling and darkly funny revelations about lust and loyalty, make this novel one of the season's most absorbing reads.

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