Black Widow By Chris Brookmyre

The Guardian hailed Black Widow by Scottish crime master Christopher Brookmyre as exceptionally good.  I agree wholeheartedly! I finished reading it in one day, staying up till almost midnight to finish it.

I’ve my fair share of disappointment with quite a number of psychological thrillers that fail to live up to the hype surrounding them, arousing in me a sense of fatigue. Black Widow by Chris Brookmyre is like a dose of steroids that has helped to ease my fatigue. It is a tour de force psychological thriller that cements Chris’s place in the pantheon of great crime writers.

Black Widow by Chris Brookmyre

Diana Jager, an accomplished and renowned surgeon, loses her job at a prestigious hospital in England, after she was exposed as the author of a highly controversial blog about sexism in medicine. She ends up working in a hospital in Inverness in Northern Ireland where she feels life is passing her by.

Then she meets Peter, who offers her the second chance in life she thought would never come. This leads to a whirlwind romance and within six months, they are married. After their wedding, Peter reveals himself as a completely different person. Things then take a downward spiral as their marriage starts to disintegrate.

About 6 months into their marriage, Peter vanishes after his car crashes veers off an icy road and plunges into a river. Was it an accident? A suicide? A murder? Does Anna have anything to do with it? Peter’s sister, Lucy, thinks there is more to the tale than meets the eye, and asks disgraced journalist, Jack Parlabane, to investigate. Jack, sensing the possibility of a story that might resurrect his career, accepts the assignment.

What follows is a maze of deceit. The novel features alternate narrators and timelines. Diana is the primary narrator and we hear her point of view and feel empathy for her.  When we hear the narrations of the other characters, we get the feeling that we may have been duped.

I was completely enthralled as I found myself first steered one way then another. It is truly one of the best thrillers that I have ever read.