Missing-wife mystery offers too many twists

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This article was published 22/02/2025 (587 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Fittingly for its title, this thriller from British author Alice Feeney mixes fluid prose and clever insights with a clumsy storyline, half-baked plot twists and rushed ending.

The result: a beautiful and ugly combination.

Feeney debuted as a mystery/thriller novelist in 2017 with Sometimes I Lie, a recollection narrated by a woman in a coma.

Beautiful Ugly is her seventh novel in just eight years, which may explain the hurried, awkward feel to the story.

The novel opens just outside of London, with author Grady Green phoning his wife, Abby, as she drives home so he can share some good news with her.

But during that call, Abby stops to help someone she sees stranded on the road.

Grady never hears from her again.

A year later, he’s not only still grief-stricken, but out of money and suffering from writer’s block.

“I do want to write another book. I just don’t know if I can after what happened. Grief is a patient thief and steals far more than people who have never known it realize,” Grady muses.

So he happily accepts his agent’s offer to put him up in a writer’s cottage on the Isle of Amberly, a remote community just off the coast of Scotland.

But something’s off. The community is far more isolated than he expected — and the residents know more about him than they should.

And nearly every day, he thinks he sees Abby everywhere.

Feeney worked as a BBC journalist for 15 years before her novels took off. (Perhaps in a nod to Feeney’s former career, Abby worked as a journalist before disappearing.) Her journalism background shows in her direct writing style with brief, appropriate metaphors.

An example: Grady recalls of his relationship with Abby, “I dished out sorrys like sweets at Halloween and she gobbled them all up, even the ones she didn’t like the taste of.”

Feeney explores themes of women’s empowerment, intimate-partner abuse and grief.

She unfolds many aspects of the novel well. Grady narrates the story and although he comes across as sincere, readers will quickly pick up that he’s not a reliable narrator.

The novel contains the requisite plot twists and surprise reveals — too many of them, actually.

A good plot twist is surprising but also believable — think of Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl or Paula Hawkins’ The Girl on the Train, where the plot reveals suddenly made the rest of the story make sense.

In contrast, most of Feeney’s surprises will elicit no more than a shrug and may make readers feel disrespected.

Kathryne Cardwell is a writer in Treaty 1 Territory.