THE WIFE

A woman who suffered extreme trauma in her teen years learns that her celebrity husband may be a sexual predator.

Jason Powell is hot in every way. The handsome NYU professor has written a book on socially conscious investing called Equalonomics that spent nearly two years on the bestseller list. Now, in addition to his university job, he has a mega-successful consulting firm and a top-rated podcast. “I never would have predicted that my cute little egghead would become a cultural and political icon,” says his wife, Angela, the narrator, who met her man during a catering gig she was working out on Long Island. Now she and Jason occupy a carriage house worth millions in Greenwich Village and send their precocious son to a pricey private school; she has the life of her dreams. Then comes the fly in the ointment, an intern named Rachel who files a complaint at the NYPD Special Victims Unit claiming that Jason made inappropriate sexual suggestions at the office. A second line of narration follows Detective Corinne Duncan as she investigates the complaint, which blows up a few days later when a second woman comes forward with a much more serious accusation. As the story explodes in the media and on the internet, Angela’s reaction is a bit different than one might expect: “How long could Jason’s 'scandal' make the rounds before someone started to wonder why his wife kept such a low profile?” Why, indeed. Angela’s unusual and horrible secret will not completely unfold until the very end of this page-turner. Burke (The Ex, 2016, etc.) puts her experience as prosecutor to good use in her 13th novel, with detailed police work and legal machinations playing key roles.

Classic domestic-thriller elements—the too-perfect couple, the unreliable narrator, the troubled past—are given a good workout in this satisfying round of “Who’s the Psycho?”