The Woman in the Window
By A.J. Finn
448 pages;
William Morrow
Dr. Anna
Fox is a shut-in. A former child psychologist, Anna has been suffering from
agoraphobia—a terror of leaving her home—in the wake of an
unnamed trauma. Separated from her husband, who now has custody of their child,
she spends her days watching old movies on DVD, drinking, popping pills and
spying on the neighbors—zooming in with her telephoto lens through the
windows of her city brownstone. When the Russells move into number 207, she is
mesmerized: "One house away, one door down, there's the family I had, the
life that was mine—a life I thought lost, irretrievably, except here
it is, right across the park." Then, Anna sees a murder through the
window. She is sure
she saw it, but the police believe she's a crazy, drug-addled drunk, the
Russells (menacingly) deny everything, plus there's no body. Although Anna
viewed the crime through her camera lens, she didn't take a picture. Did she
imagine it all? Or is she being gaslighted? The search for the truth—about
her own suppressed past as well as what happened at the Russells'—may
cost her her life. Although the story does nod to The Girl on the Train, its gaspworthy plot
twists offer deep insights into trauma, grief and desire.
— Dawn Raffel
