In the year since it’s been out, The Woman in the Window has been more noted for the drama of its author than the success of the book itself, thanks in large part to Ian Parker’s excellent New Yorker piece on Dan Mallory, aka “AJ Finn.”
Reading it made me never want to pick up the book despite the breathless hype surrounding it. While i occasionally indulge in the Gillian Flynn thriller, I prefer more of a noir with this type of book, so I assumed this was of the airport bestseller variety. However, when it was on sale at my local library for $1 (I’d pay to own it but wouldn’t rent it for free, go figure), I decided to snatch it up. And wanting to knock something out quickly over the weekend, I looked at it on the shelf and thought Why not?
Well, if I could have, I would have finished it in one sitting. It’s still a thriller but it’s competently written. “Finn” or Mallory or whomever he is knows hows how to layer suspense: gradually and with ease, letting the twists do the work rather than telegraph everything. Clearly influenced by Alfred Hitchcock and 50s noir movies, the writer takes all the right lessons from them. I was totally engrossed in the story from beginning to end.
However, my problem with thrillers is much the same one I have with mysteries: I’m usually disappointed at the reveal. This one not only disappointed me, it angered me, for it played into a trope I hate and I can’t breathe a word of why without giving the end away. It didn’t sour me on the entire book; bad endings rarely do. It just pissed me off that this trope is still a popular one (it recently came up in a blockbuster film too, won’t say which).
All that to say, this is a quality thriller written by a competent scribe with an ending you may like more than me.