What My Husband Did by Kerry Wilkinson starts off a little differently than most murder mysteries. A twelve year-old girl is found barely alive in a stream on a cold, wintery night. She was last seen getting into a man's car outside a gas station in a quaint little village town where everyone is in the middle of everyone else's business. The protagonist, Maddy, is more than a little concerned when her husband is revealed to be the driver of the mystery car. She's sure her husband can offer a reasonable explanation that would quiet the unsettling rumors that are beginning to spread, but there's only one problem- he never returned home. This only fuels the gossip and suspicion surrounding her husband's involvement in the terrible crime. The title and first chapter alone do a pretty convincing job of pointing the finger at Maddy's husband, but as all good detectives know, small towns are good at keeping big secrets.
I wasn't sure if I was going to be into this story after reading the first few chapters, but somewhere around 25% in, I was hooked. Maddy is a strong character and I appreciated that she wasn't portrayed as some naive, devoted housewife who refuses to believe her husband might be capable of keeping secrets from her. Her reactions came across as authentic and I was very much rooting for her. There were many suspenseful moments and suspicious characters that kept me on high alert. Several of the townspeople have prominent roles in the story and I enjoyed learning their backstories in addition to Maddy's. The small town setting and cliquey women reminded me a lot of the characters in Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty.
While the characterization in the novel was excellent, there were some issues with the plot that kept me from being able to rate this book higher. There's a secondary storyline within the novel that flashbacks to show Maddy's relationship with her father who was imprisoned for a violent crime. While at first this backstory added to the intrigue of the story, it ended up feeling like an unnecessary addition. It didn't end up affecting Maddy much in the present-day, or at least not to the level one would expect, so I'm confused as to why it was even included. The novel ends in a flashback with what was clearly meant to be a shocking twist, but it just left me confused. To avoid spoiling anything, I can't go into too much detail, but the last chapter felt misplaced. To have any kind of impact on the reader, it needed to have had a larger impact on Maddy. Had this "reveal" been earlier on in the novel, the author could have given herself time to show how Maddy was left damaged from that piece of her past. Instead, it just feels like it was slapped onto the end as a way of throwing one more surprise at the reader.
If you enjoy mysteries with authentic characters in an intimate setting, you will probably enjoy this book. There was plenty of suspense and twists that I didn't see coming, but the ending was disappointing.
*Thanks to the author, Bookouture, and Netgalley for providing me with a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review!
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