I’m a fan of psychological thrillers, even those that require a fair amount of willing suspension of disbelief, so I was happy to receive a copy of Nicci French’s lates, What  To Do When Someone Dies, from William Morrow/Custom House and NetGalley in exchange for this honest review. TBH, the title was a bit off-putting — sort of sounds like a rather depressing (though likely helpful when needed) nonfiction title. 

The premise was interesting, if a bit overdone in recent years: someone is notified that their spouse has died in an accident, and it turns out they were not alone. In this case, Eleanor Falkner’s husband Greg Manning has been killed in an automobile accident, along with his passenger, a woman Eleanor has never heard of. As far as she knew, Greg was a solid husband, their life together was good, and he was trustworthy…or was he? Eleanor is distraught and, although she is somewhat of an unreliable narrator,  she tries to pull things together and figure out WTH was going on.

There is a cast of characters that are more or less friends of the couple and, although she seems aware that it might be better for her to focus on getting her life in order, she is unable to resist investigating the “other woman” to try to find out who she was, how she knew Greg, and what exactly their relationship was. She just can’t believe it was as it looks: an affair that came to light in a sudden and shocking way. 

It’s hard to describe the lengths she goes as she tries to find the truth without giving too much away, and her actions definitely require the reader to just sit back and enjoy the ride, which I was happy to do. I kind of kept wanting to slap Eleanor, but overall It’s a fine bit of pandemic escapist reading, with twists and surprises and a plot that held my interest once I decided to just go with it. I wasn’t aware that Nicci French is really two people: English husband and wife team Ncci Gerard and Sean French. They have written quite a few psychological thrillers, all of which have the same sans serif font title on the cover, and some of which sound like they might be good…since the pandemic isn’t going away quickly, I am happy to find a new author(s) to enjoy. Four stars.