The Wife and the Widow by Christian White

Set against the backdrop of a fictional island named Belport Island in Australia, The Wife and the Widow by Christian White is a thriller told from the perspectives of two women: Kate, a Melbourne widow, and Abby, an island local.

The story begins with Kate and her daughter waiting at the airport for her husband John to return from London. But he isn’t on the plane at all. Kate contacts his employer only to find out that her husband has left the employer three months ago.  Then Kate reports to the police that her husband is missing after she cannot get a hold of him. Angered by the lies of her husband, she sets out with her father-in-law for Belport Island where she has a summer home , hoping to find her husband and answers

Abby lives in Belport Island with her husband and kids. She is working shifts at the grocery store to help with the family finances. Her husband Ray’s job as a caretaker and maintenance contractor for unoccupied vacation houses is seasonal and uncertain, and he’s been moodier than usual.

Then a body is found and it turns out to be John. Twenty three years ago, a body had also been found in the same location. Who are the murderers of the two men?

The Wife and the Widow held me in its grip and I totally enjoyed the read. The thing about the dual perspectives are the mini cliffhangers at the end of each chapter. I have to wait until after the next chapter to find out what is going on! I dilvuge a little spoiler here: the lack of a timeline in the narrative by Abby.  When I realised what was going on late in the book, I was initially confused. I flipped back through the book to check if I had read it correctly because of the missing timeline. It finally dawned on me that this was the author’s ingenious way of plotting the novel.