What His Wife Knew by Jo Jakeman
I would like to thank Vintage for a copy of this novel in exchange for affair and honest review
Publisher – Vintage
Published – Out Now
Price – 99p Kindle eBook £8.99 paperback
SORRY
The only word scribbled on a note from Beth's husband before he disappeared.
The police believe that Oscar took his own life and this last apology was his way of saying goodbye to his wife. But Beth knows there is more to the story. As disturbing secrets about his life emerge, and the lies of those closest to her begin to unravel, she realises she never really knew her husband at all.
She wants to know what he was sorry for, and she's going to find out... but someone doesn't want her to discover the truth.
And they'll do anything to stop her.
We look while on holiday at families enjoying themselves and always tend to speculate who they are and the lives they lead. But the images we gain from family events, looking over parks and pictures on our social media often rarely tell the whole story. People put themselves in roles – the father, the mother or the wife. The role can take over someone’s life. Not maliciously just it’s the easier thing to do. Then things can go wrong, and we are required to remember who we actually are. In Jo Jakeman’s fascinating thriller What His Wife Knew we get an apparently successful loving family suddenly rocked to its core y unexpected events and setting up a whole chain of unexpected consequences
The Lomas family are Oscar, Beth, Gabe and Honey. Oscar is the daring brother running the family lumber business. Beth is the wife and mother staying at home looking after house and kids. They enjoy family curry on Friday night when the phones are tucked away. Then Oscar disappears over the weekend; his car is found abandoned by a park and then his brother finds his body at the bottom of a cliff. Beth is shocked and not sure what has led her to this. Her childhood best friend thre successful Molly has come to help her. Beth starts to discover Oscar had a lot of secrets and wasn’t the man she had thought he was. These discoveries rock her world, expose even more secrets and ultimately put Beth in a lot of danger herself.
I really enjoyed this story as it crates a tangle of surprises and family secrets that Oscar’s death finally brings to the surface. What really made this work for me is the primary character is Beth. Jakeman makes those chapters in Beth’s own voice and the [phrases, use of tone make her feel an incredibly warm, often stressed and initially frazzled character dealing with grief and shock; not just her own but her teenage children’s too. But as the revelations come thick and fast; we see someone who has a lot of hidden strength despite so many people thinking she is fragile, Beth actually will always put her remaining family first too. As Oscar’s various actions and lies to cover them up all come out we soon find ourselves ever more bonding to her and want going some justice and closure for Beth as the betrayals she finds stacks up.
The wider cast to is really interesting in particular Molly. A working-class child now a successful London based businesswoman who is the polar opposite to Beth but we also discover she has secrets in her past that make her actually more someone in armour than could be easily undone. Trying to out the pieces together is the ambitious DC Lowry a detective who wants to progress and finds this traditionally quiet neighbourhood not offering any chances until this death rocks the community. It’s a very strong cast of women both good and not so good that I loved had weaving storylines and unexpected connections that puled me into the plot.
The central mystery is also very clever. A dead person with hidden secrets is a classic plotline but Jakeman throws in a host of unexpected revelations that are juicy, changing your impressions of characters and also revealing a bigger mystery to be solved. It leads to a very clever, tense, and unexpected finale pulling all the pieces together and giving closure to the various storylines in a very satisfactory way.
What His Wife Knew is a great thriller. Perfect to clear your head of festive cobwebs and get the brain working as well as reminding us that we never truly know all sides of a person even those we hold very close. Highly recommended!
