The Woman in the Window

The Woman in the Window is set in present day New York. Dr Anna Fox now lives alone following an incident that took place just under a year ago. Anna now suffers from severe agoraphobia and fills her days watching (and photographing) her neighbours and self-medicating with psychiatric drugs and alcohol.

She is separated from her husband Ed who is also caring for their young daughter Olivia whilst Anna is getting treatment. She talks to them both regularly and misses them terribly. Anna resides in what was their family home, a large five-storey brownstone overlooking the park and the houses opposite. One day she believes she has witnessed a brutal attack in one of the houses across from her and she sets about trying to prove it – except that nobody else saw the crime and there is no body or any hard evidence.

It takes a few pages to calibrate the brain to the short sentence structures and the speedy toing and froing between Anna’s thoughts and her reality. Once I was used to that the book reads smoothly and drew me deeply into Anna’s now very small world and her mental and emotional state that is nonetheless incredibly complex. There are questions to be answered that are planted early in the story that spark interest and build curiosity. As the story progresses the suspense and unveiling of past events builds to an almost unbearable intensity, making it impossible to put the book down.

Long stretches of this book are brilliant and there is of course a Hitchcockesque feel to the scenario – and constant references to his films as Anna watches them on repeat to fill her days – but that’s where it ends. This is a great thriller in its own right. There are, however, smaller parts of the book that are slightly clichéd and feel like they are written solely to tick boxes for dramatic purposes. This was a shame as a little less would have been so much more.