The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn Review

Anna Fox is an agoraphobic who spends her days watching her neighbours from her house. Then a new family moves in across the way - husband, wife, teenage boy - and one night Anna sees what looks like the husband killing the wife! Except she’s been inconsistent with her many prescription pills and supplementing those with copious amounts of booze - did she really see murder most foul or is it all in her head? Anna must overcome her phobia to find the truth.

AJ Finn’s novel The Woman in the Window is a surprisingly fast read despite being a 400+ page book with not a whole lot happening beyond a couple of key plot points. It helps that the premise is compelling and Finn’s writing is accessible, though the reason why I kept turning the pages quickly was to find out whodunit and why.

And that’s where the biggest let-down was: the final act. The reveal is drawn-out over far too many pages; whether or not Anna imagined the murder is never in doubt; and the villain does the cliched extended monologue over-explaining their motivations, etc. that’s purely for the reader’s benefit. The killer’s identity was unexpected but got weaker and sillier the more they went on and on.

The premise is very Hitchcockian (Rear Window), a fact referenced in the book via Anna’s love of old black and white movies, particularly Hitchcock’s oeuvre. Meh - I guess the character needed some personality, though, beyond the self-referential nods that added little to the book, it didn’t make me like Anna any more. She’s not a bad protagonist but she’s instantly forgettable. And I didn’t really care about the story behind her own secret trauma that led to her agoraphobia - it was dull and contrived, though, again, a bit of a shock. I’ll definitely give it to Finn for being unpredictable where it mattered.

I can see why The Woman in the Window is a bestseller - it’s fun and engaging for the most part and I did want to see what happened in the end. A lot of it though is pointless fluff and the final act left me indifferent and rolling my eyes at the increasingly batty melodrama. I wouldn’t call it a great book but it’s not bad either - a fine example of the “mildly entertaining airport thriller” genre!