OverDrive would like to use cookies to store information on your computer to improve your user experience at our Website. One of the cookies we use is critical for certain aspects of the site to operate and has already been set. You may delete and block all cookies from this site, but this could affect certain features or services of the site. To find out more about the cookies we use and how to delete them, click here to see our Privacy Policy.
Another thrilling domestic suspense novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Couple Next Door and Not a Happy Family
“A Stranger in the House will have you sleeping with the lights on for weeks.”—Bustle “Smart and suspenseful. . . you'll never see the ending coming.” —PureWow In this neighborhood, danger lies close to home. Karen and Tom Krupp are happy—they’ve got a lovely home in upstate New York, they’re practically newlyweds, and they have no kids to interrupt their comfortable life together. But one day, Tom returns home to find Karen has vanished—her car’s gone and it seems she left in a rush. She even left her purse—complete with phone and ID—behind. There's a knock on the door—the police are there to take Tom to the hospital where his wife has been admitted. She had a car accident, and lost control as she sped through the worst part of town. The accident has left Karen with a concussion and a few scrapes. Still, she’s mostly okay—except that she can’t remember what she was doing or where she was when she crashed. The cops think her memory loss is highly convenient, and they suspect she was up to no good. Karen returns home with Tom, determined to heal and move on with her life. Then she realizes something’s been moved. Something’s not quite right. Someone’s been in her house. And the police won't stop asking questions. Because in this house, everyone’s a stranger. Everyone has something they’d rather keep hidden. Something they might even kill to keep quiet.
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
Another thrilling domestic suspense novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Couple Next Door and Not a Happy Family
“A Stranger in the House will have you sleeping with the lights on for weeks.”—Bustle “Smart and suspenseful. . . you'll never see the ending coming.” —PureWow In this neighborhood, danger lies close to home. Karen and Tom Krupp are happy—they’ve got a lovely home in upstate New York, they’re practically newlyweds, and they have no kids to interrupt their comfortable life together. But one day, Tom returns home to find Karen has vanished—her car’s gone and it seems she left in a rush. She even left her purse—complete with phone and ID—behind. There's a knock on the door—the police are there to take Tom to the hospital where his wife has been admitted. She had a car accident, and lost control as she sped through the worst part of town. The accident has left Karen with a concussion and a few scrapes. Still, she’s mostly okay—except that she can’t remember what she was doing or where she was when she crashed. The cops think her memory loss is highly convenient, and they suspect she was up to no good. Karen returns home with Tom, determined to heal and move on with her life. Then she realizes something’s been moved. Something’s not quite right. Someone’s been in her house. And the police won't stop asking questions. Because in this house, everyone’s a stranger. Everyone has something they’d rather keep hidden. Something they might even kill to keep quiet.
Due to publisher restrictions the library cannot purchase additional copies of this title, and we apologize if there is a long waiting list. Be sure to check for other copies, because there may be other editions available.
Due to publisher restrictions the library cannot purchase additional copies of this title, and we apologize if there is a long waiting list. Be sure to check for other copies, because there may be other editions available.
Excerpts-
From the book
Chapter One
On this hot August night, Tom Krupp parks his car–a leased Lexus–in the driveway of his handsome two-story home. The house, complete with a two-car garage, is set behind a generous lawn and framed with beautiful old trees. To the right of the driveway, a flagstone path crosses in front of the porch, with steps leading up to a solid wooden door in the middle of the house. To the right of the front door is a large picture window the width of the living room.
The house sits on a gently curving street that ends in a cul-de-sac. The surrounding houses are all equally attractive and well maintained, and relatively similar. People who live here are successful and settled; everyone's a little bit smug.
This quiet, prosperous suburb in upstate New York, populated with mostly professional couples and their families, seems oblivious to the problems of the small city that surrounds it, oblivious to the problems of the larger world, as if the American dream has continued to live on here, smooth and unruffled.
But the untroubled setting does not match Tom's current state of mind. He cuts the lights and the engine and sits uneasily for a moment in the dark, despising himself.
Then, with a start, he notices that his wife's car is not in its usual place in the driveway. He automatically checks his watch: 9:20. He wonders if he's forgotten something. Was she going out? He can't remember her mentioning anything, but he's been so busy lately. Maybe she just went out to run an errand and will be back any minute. She's left the lights on; they give the house a welcoming glow.
He gets out of the car into the summer night–it smells of freshly mown grass–swallowing his disappointment. He wanted, rather fervently, to see his wife. He stands for a moment, his hand on the roof of the car, and looks across the street. Then he grabs his briefcase and suit jacket from the passenger seat and tiredly closes the car door. He walks along the path, up the front steps, and opens the door. Something is wrong. He holds his breath.
Tom stands completely still in the doorway, his hand resting on the knob. At first he doesn't know what's bothering him. Then he realizes what it is. The door wasn't locked. That in itself isn't unusual-most nights he comes home and opens the door and walks right in, because most nights Karen's home, waiting for him. But she's gone out with her car and forgotten to lock the door. That's very odd for his wife, who's a stickler about locking the doors. He slowly lets out his breath. Maybe she was in a rush and forgot.
His eyes quickly take in the living room, a serene rectangle of pale gray and white. It's perfectly quiet; there's obviously no one home. She left the lights on, so she must not have gone out for long. Maybe she went to get some milk. There will probably be a note for him. He tosses his keys onto the small table by the front door and heads straight for the kitchen at the back of the house. He's starving. He wonders if she's already eaten or whether she's been waiting for him.
It's obvious that she's been preparing their supper. A salad is almost finished; she has stopped slicing mid-tomato. He looks at the wooden cutting board, at the tomato and the sharp knife lying beside it. There's pasta on the granite counter, ready to be cooked, a large pot of water on the stainless steel gas stove. The stove is off and the water in the pot is cold;...
Reviews-
June 19, 2017 At the start of this well-plotted if workmanlike thriller from bestseller Lapena (The Couple Next Door), the cops can’t figure out what upstate New York housewife and bookkeeper Karen Krupp was doing in the sketchiest part of town before running a red light and smashing her Honda Civic headfirst into a utility pole—and neither can Karen, who comes to in the hospital with no memory of that night beyond an underlying feeling of dread. But with the discovery of a murdered man just blocks from the scene, bells start to sound for detectives Rasbach and Jennings, setting in motion an investigation that quickly threatens to expose some unsavory secrets beneath the cozy suburban life Karen and her husband of two years, Tom, have constructed for themselves—not to mention the downright creepy activities of the couple’s intrusive neighbor, Brigid, who’s Karen’s putative best friend. Though the characters pack all the emotional heft of the glossy shelter magazines Karen collects, plentiful plot twists—through the final page—make this a diverting page-turner. Agent: Helen Heller, Helen Heller Agency (Canada).
June 15, 2017 After a terrible car accident, a woman is left without memory of the events, but a dead body at the scene speaks of something sinister.When Karen Krupp crashes her car into a pole after fleeing an abandoned restaurant in a rough part of town in upstate New York, she's left with a bad concussion and no memory of what happened before her accident. Her husband, Tom, doesn't know what to think since she went out without her purse and ID and didn't leave him a note as she usually does, and those are only the first in a string of out-of-character actions for Karen. The shocks keep coming when a dead man is found in the derelict restaurant, shot to death, a pair of distinctive pink rubber gloves left at the scene. Tom is convinced Karen isn't a murderer, but as evidence piles up, he starts to doubt that he ever really knew his wife at all. Karen won't find comfort in her "friend" Brigid Cruikshank, who lives across the street. Poor Brigid hates her marriage to boring Bob, and all she can think about is the hanky-panky she and Tom were up to before he married Karen. Bob is inadequate, but Tom is her dream hubby, and as cracks form in Tom and Karen's marriage, delusional Brigid only sees opportunity. Detectives Rasbach and Jennings smell something fishy and are convinced Karen is hiding something, and as they dig into her past, explosive secrets come to light. Tom is hapless and self-pitying, allowing himself to be manipulated at every turn, and Brigid, at times unintentionally funny, is the quintessential soap-opera villainess--she delights in spying on Tom and Karen through her window while knitting and nursing fantasies about Tom. Readers will guess the obligatory final twist quickly, and Lapena's (The Couple Next Door, 2016, etc.) attempts at creating any sort of suspense are crushed under the weight of predictability. Readers looking for someone, anyone, to root for won't find it among these well-to-do suburbanites behaving badly.
COPYRIGHT(2017) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
March 15, 2017
Lapena wrote award-winning literary fiction, then triumphed with her first thriller, The Couple Next Door. Here, a woman is found injured in a shady part of town. Neither the police nor her husband believes her explanation, and she herself isn't sure what happened.
Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
July 1, 2017
When Tom Krupp comes home from work, his wife's car is gone, but the front door is unlocked and it's clear that Karen has been preparing dinner in the kitchen. Most troubling of all, her purse and cell phone are still in the house. As he tries to understand what's happening, the police arrive to announce that Karen has been in an accident. He rushes to his wife's side in the hospital, but she can't remember the accident, nor why she left the house or where she went. The police are suspicious, Tom struggles with his own doubts, and Karen's best friend seems to be the only one who really believes her. Tension builds and relationships threaten to fall apart as Karen and Tom try to piece together what happened that night and what it means for their future, if they even have one. VERDICT The author of the acclaimed The Couple Next Door has written another fast-paced, engrossing psychological thriller that will have readers guessing until the very end. [See Prepub Alert, 2/20/17.]--Cynthia Price, Francis Marion Univ. Lib., Florence, SC
Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
Title Information+
Publisher
Penguin Publishing Group
OverDrive Read
Release date:
EPUB eBook
Release date:
Digital Rights Information+
Copyright Protection (DRM) required by the Publisher may be applied to this title to limit or prohibit printing or copying. File sharing or redistribution is prohibited. Your rights to access this material expire at the end of the lending period. Please see Important Notice about Copyrighted Materials for terms applicable to this content.
Please update to the latest version of the OverDrive app to stream videos.
Device Compatibility Notice
The OverDrive app is required for this format on your current device.
Bahrain, Egypt, Hong Kong, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the Sudan, the Syrian Arab Republic, Tunisia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen
You've reached your library's checkout limit for digital titles.
To make room for more checkouts, you may be able to return titles from your Checkouts page.
Excessive Checkout Limit Reached.
There have been too many titles checked out and returned by your account within a short period of time.
Try again in several days. If you are still not able to check out titles after 7 days, please contact Support.
You have already checked out this title. To access it, return to your Checkouts page.
This title is not available for your card type. If you think this is an error contact support.
There are no copies of this issue left to borrow. Please try to borrow this title again when a new issue is released.
| Sign In
You will be prompted to sign into your library account on the next page.
If this is your first time selecting “Send to NOOK,” you will then be taken to a Barnes & Noble page to sign into (or create) your NOOK account. You should only have to sign into your NOOK account once to link it to your library account. After this one-time step, periodicals will be automatically sent to your NOOK account when you select "Send to NOOK."
The first time you select “Send to NOOK,” you will be taken to a Barnes & Noble page to sign into (or create) your NOOK account. You should only have to sign into your NOOK account once to link it to your library account. After this one-time step, periodicals will be automatically sent to your NOOK account when you select "Send to NOOK."
You can read periodicals on any NOOK tablet or in the free NOOK reading app for iOS, Android or Windows 8.
