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

“My head was once a filing cabinet. Now it’s a flurry of papers, floating on a draft.”

The woman in the window by A. J. Finn is a mystery/thriller fiction novel. The beauty of the book is how intricate each of the layers is and how beautifully they have been unfurled by the author.

The story is about Dr Anna Fox, who lives in a large, brownstone apartment, within the city of New York. Due to a past traumatic incident, she had been living confined to this apartment, as she had developed agoraphobia since the incident. She had separated from her husband, who lives away, with their daughter Olivia. Now, being confined within four walls does get a tad boring, so alongside being a child psychologist, Anna spends her time spying on her neighbours.

The story becomes riveting, when she witnesses a crime, in one of the houses across the street. She gets tangled into a giant web of this messy crime, as she also falls down a pit of mental instability. “My head was once a filing cabinet. Now it’s a flurry of papers, floating on a draft.”, she says because her memory is fuzzy and she consumes her prescription pills with red wine, instead of water. (which, obviously, is very dangerous and not recommended)

Not to give any spoilers, but accounts of her deteriorating mental health are given in various chapters, which causes the police to not believe her at first, about even the occurrence of the crime.

The book also showcases her struggles with her agoraphobia, in detail. One time, during Halloween, some kids egged her house, since she didn’t give any candy out. She tried to open the door, and scramble them away (pun intended), but ended up on the floor, passed out. Yes, she could not even step on the threshold of her main door, and look out onto the street.

The crime itself, and its investigation take interesting twists too, revealing a lot of interesting occurrences.

Author’s note: To anyone who likes a good murder/mystery/thriller story, please read this. I enjoy mystery/thriller novels A LOT, so much so, that I didn’t branch my genre out, until recently. (some might say I am a fanatic). Anyhow, the point of mentioning this unimportant, useless trivia about myself is, that despite having read a plethora of such books, this one makes the top of my list, excluding Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie, of course, I worship them. Honestly, the book blew me away. (I had to go out for fresh air after I finished it!)