The
Perfect Couple: by Jackie Kabler
About the book: The perfect couple … or the perfect lie?
A devoted wife…
A year ago, Gemma met the love of her life, Danny. Since then, their
relationship has been perfect. But one evening, Danny doesn’t return home.
A missing husband…
Gemma turns to the police. She is horrified by what she discovers – a serial
killer is on the loose in Bristol. When she sees photos of the victims she is
even more stunned…they all look just like Danny.
Who would you believe?
But the police are suspicious. Why has no one apart from Gemma heard from Danny
in weeks? Why is there barely a trace of him in their flat? Is she telling them
the truth, or is this marriage hiding some very dark secrets?
About the author:
Jackie Kabler was born in Coventry but spent
much of her childhood in Ireland. She worked as a newspaper reporter and then
as a television news correspondent for twenty years, spending nearly a decade
on GMTV followed by stints with ITN and BBC News. During that time, she covered
major stories around the world including the Kosovo crisis, the impeachment of
President Clinton, the Asian tsunami, famine in Ethiopia, the Soham murders and
the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. Jackie now divides her time between
crime writing and working as a presenter on shopping channel QVC. She has a
degree in zoology from Trinity College Dublin, runs long distances for fun and
lives in Gloucestershire with her husband.
My take
The book begins with Gemma O’Connor, a
freelance journalist, returning to her Bristol home from a work-related trip,
to find her husband Danny missing. Gemma and her husband have recently, just three
weeks back, shifted here from London. She awaits Danny’s return for a day and a
half, with her dog Albert as eager as her to welcome Danny back home, before
finally going to the police.
DCI Helena Dickens and DS Devon are already
neck-deep in two murders that have rocked Bristol in recent times, and they are
hardly interested in a missing person when Gemma shows up at the police station.
That is when they make a fascinating discovery.
The victims that have been recently murdered are lookalikes of Danny O’Connor.
As they begin investigating the serial killer
angle and trying to figure out whether Danny is alive or dead, and if alive,
where, new facts begin to surface.
Contrary to Gemma’s claims that Danny has been
in Bristol since past three weeks, no one else has seen him, nor is there any
evidence that he ever was in Bristol. Neighbours claim they have seen only
Gemma right from the beginning; Danny has never joined the new workplace Gemma
claims he went to every day, five days of the week; there has been no bank
transaction from Danny’s account; Gemma has no photos of the two of them from Bristol
though she swears they had taken a few, and there is hardly any DNA belonging
to Danny in the house.
As the needle of suspicion begins pointing
towards Gemma, two more backdated similar, lookalike murders in London come to light.
Where is Danny? Why are people who look like
him getting murdered? Where did Danny go every day when he went off to work? Or
was he really never in Bristol ever?
DCI Helena is convinced that Gemma is lying
through her teeth. DS Devon wants to believe Gemma, but all evidence points
against her. Gemma desperately wants the police to believe her but she has no
idea how to convince them.
As Gemma rushes against time to seek answers
along with her friend Eva, she learns things about her own life that she had never
known.
The story narration switches between the POV of
the police officers and Gemma. The flow of the story is very nice, and every
chapter ends on a cliffhanger, making us hungry to read more. The suspense is
good, and the twists are unexpected. The ending could have been shorter, it
feels unnecessarily stretched out. But overall it is a gripping book that kept
me hooked on to it till I finished it. I could guess the suspense a little
beyond midway, but still, the why’s and how’s kept me wanting to read more. So I
rate it four stars.
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