Reviewed by Robert Goodman.
By JP Pomare, Hachette, $32.99.
New Zealand thriller author JP Pomare never does the same thing twice. In his latest book, The Wrong Woman, he pivots again to complicate the seemingly simple story of a private investigator sent to a small town in America to look into the circumstances of a car accident that left a woman seriously injured and her husband dead. Only Reid has a history with this particular town and nothing about Eshana’s life is quite what it first seems.
It’s hard to say much about The Wrong Woman without potentially dropping spoilers, but given the way the plot twists and turns they will be spoilers for things that may not be what the reader thinks. Pomare doles out the narrative in two voices – the “now” investigation of Reid into the accident and the “before” activities of Eshana who begins to suspect her husband of infidelity and starts doing her own investigating. In the present story, Reid also has to deal with and try and avoid the local police, who still remember why he left the force and the town.
The Wrong Woman is another well-plotted, and well-paced thriller from Pomare. The narrative is constantly upending the reader’s expectations as to where it is going but each revelation feels earned and keep coming to the final page.
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