Before She Knew Him: A Novel

Catching a killer is dangerous—especially if he lives next door
From the hugely talented author of The Kind Worth Killing
comes an exquisitely chilling tale of a young suburban wife with a
history of psychological instability whose fears about her new neighbor
could lead them both to murder . . .
Hen and her husband Lloyd have settled into a quiet life in a new
house outside of Boston, Massachusetts. Hen (short for Henrietta) is an
illustrator and works out of a studio nearby, and has found the right
meds to control her bipolar disorder. Finally, she’s found some
stability and peace.
But when they meet the neighbors next door, that calm begins to erode
as she spots a familiar object displayed on the husband’s office shelf.
The sports trophy looks exactly like one that went missing from the
home of a young man who was killed two years ago. Hen knows because
she’s long had a fascination with this unsolved murder—an obsession she
doesn’t talk about anymore, but can’t fully shake either.
Could her neighbor, Matthew, be a killer? Or is this the beginning of
another psychotic episode like the one she suffered back in college,
when she became so consumed with proving a fellow student guilty that
she ended up hurting a classmate?
The more Hen observes Matthew, the more she suspects he’s planning
something truly terrifying. Yet no one will believe her. Then one night,
when she comes face to face with Matthew in a dark parking lot, she
realizes that he knows she’s been watching him, that she’s really on to
him. And that this is the beginning of a horrifying nightmare she may
not live to escape. . .