The Couple in the Photo by Helen Cooper

Title: The Couple in the Photo
Author: Helen Cooper
Publication: Putnam, trade paper, 2023
Genre: Psychological suspense
Setting: Present-day Britain

Description: When Lucy married Adam, his two best friends from university, Cora and Scott, also became her closest companions. The two couples live just minutes apart in Leicester, their four children are inseparable, and they even bought a weekend cottage together and spend all their free time rehabbing it. But one day when Lucy casually glances at a coworker’s honeymoon photos, she sees one of Scott with another woman in the Maldives when he was supposed to be in Tokyo. Her husband tells her it can’t be Scott and to let it go but Lucy can’t stop worrying, especially when the woman in the photo goes missing. Should she go to the police and risk destroying their happy and comfortable lives?

My Impression: This is a fast-paced, read-in-one-sitting novel of psychological suspense in which the main character, Lucy, is a sympathetic mother of two whose friendly gesture in the teachers’ lounge at work and subsequent curiosity precipitates a series of disastrous events. One is tempted to agree with her husband that the picture is not really of Scott and certainly Lucy’s determination to find out the truth is over the top but when Scott returns from his business trip and acts suspiciously, she realizes the situation cannot be ignored.

“Secondly,” Adam continued, “you don’t know the woman in the news is the same one as in that photo. The Maldives thing might’ve just made a link in your brain. If they look alike, and there’s the coincidental thing with the location . . . .”

Lucy nodded, fiddling with the edge of the duvet. It might not be her. Might not be him. She kept chanting it in her head, hoping it would stick while knowing, deep down, that only something concrete, definitive could make her truly believe it.

Lucy is an outgoing drama teacher but she doesn’t have a lot of close friends and her parents emigrated to New Zealand years ago so Cora and Scott are very important to her. The tag line of the book is "How far would you go to keep a friend's secret?" but that is not the issue for Lucy although it may be for others.  She is desperate for Cora not to be hurt so she needs to know if what she saw was true. Her anguish as she delves into Scott’s secrets is real and she can’t stop asking questions. This is kind of my problem with psychological suspense – when I see the protagonist start taking risks (looking for Scott’s boarding passes to see whether he really went to Tokyo or pressing the work colleague to share the photo in question), it starts stressing me out or makes me mad anyone would be so foolhardy or both. 

There are many secrets and twists in this novel which would make it a good beach read if it weren’t 18 degrees outside! It’s not as dramatic than Shari LaPena’s books, of which I have read three recently, but she focuses on fewer characters so it is easier to see their development or deterioration. I would describe the book as enjoyable if you come across it but not memorable.

Source: Library. This is my first book of the year for Carol’s Cloak and Dagger Challenge.