Title: The Couple Next Door
Author: Shari Lapena
Format: Mass Market Paperback
Publication Date: July 14, 2016
Number of Pages: 352
Publisher: Penguin Books
Genre: Thriller, Mystery, Suspense, Contemporary
Synopsis:
It all started at a dinner party. . .
A domestic suspense debut about a young couple and their apparently friendly neighbors—a twisty, rollercoaster ride of lies, betrayal, and the secrets between husbands and wives. . .
Anne and Marco Conti seem to have it all–a loving relationship, a wonderful home, and their beautiful baby, Cora. But one night when they are at a dinner party next door, a terrible crime is committed. Suspicion immediately focuses on the parents. But the truth is a much more complicated story.
Inside the curtained house, an unsettling account of what actually happened unfolds. Detective Rasbach knows that the panicked couple is hiding something. Both Anne and Marco soon discover that the other is keeping secrets, secrets they’ve kept for years.
What follows is the nerve-racking unraveling of a family–a chilling tale of deception, duplicity, and unfaithfulness that will keep you breathless until the final shocking twist.
Personal Thoughts:
Rating: 
This story follows the story of Anne and Marco who decided to leave their 6-month-old baby girl, Cora, to attend a dinner party with their neighbors. The party was just at the house next door, so they figured that they could check on the baby every 30 minutes. But when they come back shortly after midnight, the baby is gone and the turmoil begins.
The story started off right away at the dinner party when Anne was already a bit dizzy from all the wine that she drank — it opened up in a very fucked up situation with these four very fucked up characters. Then they realized that baby was kidnapped and the detectives arrive and unravels each characters’ personal issues. Anne is seeing a psychiatrist because of her post partum depression, Marco badly needs money because his business is in bad shape, Anne’s parents are very rich and they hate that Anne married Marco to begin with, and Anne and Marco’s neighbors, Cynthia and Graham, have secrets of their own. Basically, each and every character in this book has something crazy going on in their lives that they are not letting on and Detective Rasbach has his own suspicions of what really happened.
I really enjoyed reading this book from start to finish — Shari Lapena’s writing-style is very easy to read. I finished this in two days given with the amount of work I needed to do, but it was just so good that I couldn’t bring myself to put the book down. The plot twists towards the end was completely shocking! Overall, I highly recommend this book to people who are new to thrillers or want to get to reading thrillers because the book is not as complex as others and it’s such a quick and easy read.