Review: The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn

The Woman in the Window
by A.J. Finn [Finn] [pseudonym of Dan Mallory] 

When the libraries’ Just Desserts mystery fiction discussion group selected The Woman in the Window for our February 2019 discussion, we knew that it was a first novel by a new author, and that the book had already been turned into a feature film, scheduled for release later this year.

What we didn’t know was that a controversy would erupt around the author, Dan Mallory, writing under the pseudonym A.J. Finn. An extended New Yorker magazine expose uncovered the fact that Mallory had lied about or made up many of the details about his personal background, particularly his educational and professional credentials and claims of a medical condition that later turned out to be false. Mallory/Finn did admit to suffering from some forms of mental illness.

What does all this have to do with his novel? Well, it is interesting to look at The Woman in the Window, which features a highly unreliable narrator, in the context of its own author being unreliable or untrustworthy with regards to “the truth”. In The Woman in the Window, Anna Fox is our protagonist, a child psychologist/therapist who is trapped in her four-story New York City brownstone because she suffers from a crippling case of agoraphobia, linked to some sort of personal trauma she experienced 10 months before the novel begins. Anna lives her life vicariously by observing (i.e. “spying on”) the lives of the neighbors she can see from her brownstone’s windows. Her husband and daughter are not her, though she enjoys talking to them on the phone. She has all her needs met by the modern convenience of having things delivered to her — groceries, medications, etc.

Oh, and those medications — they’re important, Because she takes a lot of them, and drinks a lot of wine — her favorite is Merlot — in fact, way more of both booze and pills than is healthy for her. When a new family moves into a building across the park from her, she starts watching them and quickly gets sucked into the drama of their lives. Eventually she meets all three of the members of that family — the nebbishy and nervous teenage son, the earthy free-spirit mother, and the uptight businessman father. When she observes an apparent murder, while under the influence of her wine and drugs, and has an “episode” when she tries to leave her own apartments, she can’t convince the police that she saw a crime. It doesn’t help when more and more evidence seems to pile up that she was imagining things.

The Woman in the Window is an effective thriller, with lots and lots of twists and turns in the final 100 pages. Some of the big “reveals” are obvious, but others sneak up on you — I ended up going back twice to re-read earlier passages to see the clues that were planted early on in the book. Anna Fox is not necessarily a likeable character to hold the whole thing together, but at the same time, I didn’t want anything to happen to her. I just wanted to reach through the pages and take away her Merlot and pill bottles and force her to engage with the world without those things inhibiting her reasoning. Finn/Mallory makes great use of Anna’s obsession with mystery films and film noir masterpieces, particularly the psychological suspense films of Alfred Hitchcock. Of course, her very obsession with those films can also lead to distrusting her muddled take on reality.

In the end, despite the author’s own questionable backstory, I really enjoyed this psychological thriller and am looking forward to the feature film version, which will star Amy Adams as Dr. Fox. The majority of Just Desserts members also enjoyed The Woman in the Window as well! “A.J. Finn” has a second book coming out, set in San Francisco, in early 2020.

Join us TONIGHT, March 28th, for this month's Just Desserts meeting, where we'll be discussing The Woman in the Woods by John Connolly. Yes, it's two months back to back of "The Woman in the..." titles!

[If you enjoy this, you may also wish to sample the new booklist on BookGuide — If You Liked…The Woman in the Window — for several “readalikes” for this title!]

[ publisher’s official A.J. Finn web page ] | [ publisher’s official Woman in the Window web page ]

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library

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