Lawyer Leah Dawson and pediatrician McKenna Hawkins, the protagonists of Murphy's claustrophobic debut, appear to have idyllic lives, but both are trapped in abusive marriages. Nine months earlier, Leah's husband, Liam, got her fired so she could concentrate on being a perfect wife. McKenna's husband, Zack, made her quit working after she miscarried so she could focus on starting the family she no longer wants. Leah and McKenna are strangers, but when Leah sees McKenna in the liquor store one afternoon, she senses a kinship and tails McKenna home to an upscale neighborhood near her own. Liam is away, so Leah spends several evenings watching through windows as Zack menaces McKenna. Leah's anonymous 911 call accomplishes nothing, so when Zack's threats turn to violence, Leah intervenes, altering both women's fates. Though the men in Murphy's story lack dimension, Leah and McKenna are fully realized characters whose anger, fear, and despair are palpable. A kaleidoscopic narrative amplifies tension and imparts nuance by examining the two households from inside and out. Murphy paints a powerful portrait of domestic abuse. Agent: Helen Heller, Helen Heller Agency (Canada). (May)

Leah, a woman in a psychologically abusive marriage, happens to see that another woman, a stranger, is in a situation even more dangerous than her own. As she observes the woman (whose name, she learns, is McKenna), Leah realizes they are in many ways living the same life: frightened of their husbands, living as though they are under constant surveillance. When she realizes McKenna is in immediate physical danger, Leah does what she believes is the only thing she can. This debut novel packs quite a wallop; Leah's desperate act to protect McKenna, a woman she has never actually met, is merely the jumping-off point for a story that gets more and more intricate--and increasingly darker. Murphy tells the tale in chapters from Leah's and McKenna's points of view, giving us a good look at the two women's private lives; later, a third character, a police detective, is added to the mix. Many readers will detect a similarity here to what happened to a certain girl on a train, but might that connection be its own kind of red herring in a novel full of dizzying switchbacks? An audacious and completely successful thriller.

Leah and McKenna have never met, though their lives run on parallel tracks; they're both wealthy and successful women. But as Leah drives past McKenna's house one night, she immediately understands that McKenna has the same problem she has--they're both trapped in marriages with husbands who aren't as they seem. Eventually, Leah will intervene in McKenna's life with explosive results. A debut with a 100,000-copy first printing.

Family attorney Murphy's first novel is an unnerving feminist retake on Strangers on a Train. Even though they've never met, Leah Dawson and McKenna Hawkins have a lot in common. They're "roughly the same height, with pretty features, blue eyes, and long blond hair." They live in the same neighborhood in suburban Clarkstown, Maryland. They're both childless, well-educated professionals--Leah's an attorney, McKenna's a pediatrician--married to even more successful colleagues. And both of their husbands are domestic abusers who seek to control every aspect of their lives. Psychiatrist Zackary Hawkins has pressed McKenna relentlessly to quit her job; divorce attorney Liam Dawson arranged for Leah to get fired from hers. As a result, Leah has withdrawn from most of her friendship groups, spent almost no time with her beloved mother and brother, and spiraled into nonstop drinking. One night, while she's out walking around the neighborhood in lieu of doing the more strenuous exercise urged by Liam, who blames her illness a few months earlier for her miscarriage, she happens to pass the Hawkins house and sees a disturbing interaction between husband and wife. Fascinated and repelled, she keeps returning to look in on her counterpart until one fateful night when just looking isn't enough. Leah's intervention in to McKenna's domestic crisis irreversibly changes the lives of both women even though the involvement of Detective Jordan Harrison, of the Clarkstown Police, doesn't intensify the nightmare; it just transposes it into a new key and threatens to prolong it indefinitely. Strikes an unsettling chord from the beginning and never lets go. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.