‘The Couple Next Door’

‘The Couple Next Door’ falls short of its positive reviews

Brie Wolfe

“The Couple Next Door” by Shari Lapena is a critically acclaimed and well-reviewed psychological thriller that falls flat of the intended hype. To the people who rave and rate this book four or more stars out of five: Do you like mysteries where the answer is revealed halfway through the book? And the answer is half-assed? Did you look past the unlikable protagonists central to the story or actively choose to ignore them? Were you OK with the fact that the detective was used as more of a prop than an actual character? I’m getting ahead of myself.

What follows is the slow unraveling of a family as deceit, betrayal and secrets shatter their perfect reality.

“The Couple Next Door” asks readers one simple question: How well do you know the people around you? We meet a young couple, Anne and Marco Conti, who live an idyllic life in a neighborhood in upstate New York, with seemingly pleasant neighbors and their infant girl, Cora. But when Anne and Marco come home from a dinner party next door, they come face-to-face with every parents’ worst nightmare has come true: their baby is gone. What follows is the slow unraveling of a family as deceit, betrayal and secrets shatter their perfect reality.

The mystery around Cora’s disappearance is intriguing — the Contis left the baby home alone after their babysitter canceled that day. The dinner party they were at was just next door, right? What could possibly go wrong? Immediately, I am biased, blaming the parents — not for the kidnapping, but for their stupidity — because who leaves a baby home alone? That’s just bad parenting. And I feel myself losing interest in the Contis’ sob story.

Despite all the hype and the shiny New York Times Bestseller sticker on the cover that lured me in, I struggled to keep picking this book up after the first 40 pages. What could have been a quick read was dragged on for what seemed like forever. I attribute this to many reasons, the biggest being the sense of mystery and thrill I was promised but never received.

The lack of characterization Lapena writes of Detective Rasbach is painful. His introduction is so abrupt that readers don’t get a sense of who he is or what he’s about. In a mystery novel, you want to step into the detective’s shoes, understand their thought process and feel like an active part in solving the crime. Other than his dull investigation that read like a police procedural manual, the worst thing about him and about Lapena’s characterization of him was how many times she wrote the following line about the Contis: “He almost felt sorry for them.” Because of how much that line is thrown around, I’m angered at how basic it was and that it never changed. It’s called Googling synonyms. Pitied. Emphasized. Sympathized. Felt for. Anything else.

I kept throwing predictions, and though some of them didn’t stick, I wasn’t too blindsided when the kidnapper was revealed.

The novel itself was also lackluster in the element of surprise. I kept throwing predictions, and though some of them didn’t stick, I wasn’t too blindsided when the kidnapper was revealed. Especially when it was one of Detective Rasbach’s first theories. The only thing that surprised me was how Lapena regurgitated the kidnapper mid-book. It was revealed so casually in the middle of the sentence. Though the revelation of the kidnapper doesn’t solve the mystery completely, I am left with half of the last piece to the puzzle and must wait 150 more pages until I can get the second.

My only motivation for actually finishing “The Couple Next Door” was to write this review and that in itself wasn’t good enough reason to keep going.