Being an avid fan of author Douglas Kennedy I was delighted to see his latest offering on the shelf. Having already been enthralled and gladly ensnared by ‘The Big Picture’ some years ago I waited with bated breath for ‘The Woman in the Fifth’, which offered a blend of intrigue and suspense and I was not disappointed.

Douglas Kennedy has previously successfully written in a woman’s voice but this time he is Harry Ricks, a man who had lost his marriage and his daughter due to a deep, dark secret which is only revealed half way through the book, after he has fled from the US to make a new life for himself in Paris.

Once a pillar of the community and working as a teacher, he is forced to become embroiled with the seedy underworld and pick up a string of underhand jobs to survive, mixing with various undesirables and dangerous individuals along the way. Soon, he is witness to violence and murder and life in the US suburbs seems a long way away.

But– and there is a but– just as his life seems to be taking an even more sinister and unpredictable turn he encounters the beautiful and deeply mysterious Margit, elegant and attractive and he is drawn to her like a moth to a flame.

Together the pair embark on a passionate and fiery affair. She understands him like no other and he tells her all his secrets, but Margit has secrets of her own and the affair must only be on her terms, only every three days, only for a few hours at a time and when the truth about her comes out, it is too unbelievable to fathom.

Stuck between what is real and fantasy, Harry is trapped and left questioning if fact is truly stranger than fiction. I won’t reveal that truth here because it would spoil the surprise in this book but suffice to say I couldn’t put it down and it is page-turning, gripping stuff.

Kennedy, who actually studied in Trinity College for a time, says of his novels: “I write about ordinary lives going into free-fall after some unforeseen mistake or substantial event. In other words, I write about the potential nightmares lurking behind day-to-day life and we all like to read about the nightmares of others.”

His previous novels include, ‘A Special Relationship’, ‘The Pursuit of Happiness’, ‘Temptation’, ‘The Job’, ‘State of the Union’ and ‘The Dead Heart’.

“I can never say how long a book takes to write– because they all have their own individual rhythm and because you should never tell such things,” he continues. “Generally, however, I give myself a year for a first draft– writing between 500 and 1000 words per day, six days a week. The discipline of the word quota is essential– as it gets the damn thing written.”

Of ‘The Woman in the Fifth’, he says, “It’s set in Paris– and it is, I hope, the sort of novel which will keep my readers up into four in the morning, as it is a story of a waking nightmare.” He is absolutely right.