The Loving Husband by Christobel Kent

review by Maryom

Fran Hall half-wakes one night as her husband, Nathan, comes home from the pub and climbs into bed beside her ... then, an hour or so later, she wakes fully to a scream. Finding the bed beside her empty, she goes downstairs and out into the dark farmhouse yard, where a shocking discovery awaits ... Nathan's dead body slumped in a ditch!

This psychological thriller starts on a high note, grabbing the reader's attention and curiosity, and pretty much stays that way.
As their secrets come tumbling out, Fran and Nathan soon prove to not be the ideal happy couple they seem, their move from London to the countryside something forced by Nathan rather than a joint decision and even the whole basis for their marriage suddenly seems to be in question. 
The story is told from Fran's point of view, so, while the police seem to only be investigating her as a possible suspect, we don't really know what information they have or what other lines of enquiry they might be following. She believes the police are just wasting time, not following up on all possible leads, and so decides to investigate things herself, to track down the shadowy figure she spotted across the fields on the night of the murder. .. but, to be honest, Fran seems so confused and uncertain about events of that night that it's possible to believe she could be hiding something crucial to the investigation from both police and reader, or suffering from amnesia.  
The atmosphere of flat, empty wintry fen-land is wonderfully captured, there are plenty of red herrings and dead ends, and a surprise ending, all of which add up to an excellent domestic noir style thriller.

Maryom's Review - 4.5 stars
Publisher - Sphere 
Genre - adult psychological thriller

The Crooked House by Christobel Kent

review by Maryom

Thirteen years ago Esme was the only member of her family to emerge unscathed after a night of horrific violence in which her mother, brother, and twin sisters were killed before her father presumably turned his gun on himself. Now, calling herself Alison, she's created a new anonymous life in London and thought the past was well behind her - until her boyfriend asks her to join him at a wedding in the very village the tragedy occurred. Alison's hopes of slipping in and out of the place unnoticed soon fade - even if they don't say anything, the locals have recognised her - and, despite her initial terror at returning, she finds herself drawn to the lonely crooked house where she once lived - compelled to confront the past she's tried so hard to suppress. As her memories flood back, she soon starts to question the 'official' version of what happened on that horrific night...but if her father wasn't responsible for the shootings, who was?
The Crooked House is a novel with a great sense of place and stalking evil. Saltleigh is a remote community situated between estuary and marshes; one that no one visits accidentally, that takes generations to belong in, one that closes ranks against outsiders and refuses to reveal its secrets. Alison's childhood home was isolated even further - a lonely dilapidated house surrounded by windswept marshes, reached by it's own access track. Coming back after so many years, it feels to Alison like a place where evil taints the air and that her personal tragedy was just one of a long list; a toddler killed in a house fire, a child dying of cancer, a hit and run teenage death.
After the initial shock opening, the story starts a little slowly, building Alison's current situation in London, her relationships with work colleagues and  much older boyfriend. When the setting moves to Saltleigh, the pace and menace pick up, and Alison's carefully constructed peace of mind rapidly unravels.

It's a page-turning tale of buried secrets that had me guessing to the end - I was just left wondering about the motivation of some of the characters, and at how lazy the original police investigation had been.

Maryom's Review - 4 stars
Publisher - Sphere 
Genre - adult psychological thriller