Nessun Sospetto

A wife who's too good to be true usually isn't, and the cliché holds true in Andrew Klavan's engrossing little thriller. Psychiatrist Cal Bradley is married to Marie, a devout, adoring, sensuous helpmate, and he's happier than he ever thought he'd be. In fact, he's surprisingly content to ignore the signs that something in her past is still troubling her deeply, until he sees his wife in the arms of a stranger. Then young Peter Blue, accused of battering his girlfriend and setting a church on fire, comes under Cal's care. When Peter discloses his relationship with the stranger Cal saw in the woods with his wife, Marie's past suddenly explodes into the present, threatening to turn Cal's world upside down. There's not a lot of subtlety here. The conclusion is practically handed to the reader on the first page, with its heavy foreshadowing. But the novel works anyway because of Klavan's deft characterization of Peter, a complex, spiritual adolescent who forces Cal to confront his own conscience and his conflict between love and duty. --Jane Adams