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Latest listen: The Couple Next Door, by Shari Lapena. Like Baby Doll, this was a first novel; it was well plotted and, yes, a page turner, but the writing style was pedestrian and clunky, and the characters mostly unsympathetic.
A couple leave their six-month-old baby at home alone while they have dinner next door with their neighbors--they are armed with a baby monitor, and the two parents take turns checking on the baby every half hour. But when they finally return home, the baby is gone. The story of the kidnapping offers a satisfying number of twists and revelations.
The author uses present tense (which worked well enough for the story) and multiple points of view. I disliked the sections featuring the detective investigating the case, which often seemed to offer little more than some variation of "someone is lying, and he is determined to discover the truth." Yeah, we know. The multiple POVs also sometimes meant there was unnecessary repetition of information.
I'm a bit baffled by the title, which seems to promise more of a focus on, well, the couple next door.
Overall, I enjoyed it--I'm a sucker for a twisty plot, and this one hung together without requiring more than the usual suspension of disbelief for this kind of domestic thriller.
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