I expected a good story between the covers of THE COUPLE NEXT DOOR. What I got was a terrific, even superior one. Yes, there are books with similar plots out there right now, all of them being heralded as the next...well, you can fill in the blank. This one, though, travels into uncharted territory. You will not be able to put it down for any reason whatsoever until you finish it. Debut novelist Shari Lapena makes it easy for you to do so. Each word, from first page to last, tugs and cajoles you right along, compelling you to want to know what happens next.

THE COUPLE NEXT DOOR begins with a small dinner party between neighbors. The birthday boy is the staid, if somewhat boring, Graham Stillwell. His extremely attractive wife, Cynthia, is holding the party for him and has invited their attached rowhouse next-door neighbors, Anne and Marco Conti. We learn early on that all is not well in Conti Land. Anne and Marco are new parents, and their infant daughter Cora, while much beloved, is proving difficult for her mom to handle. Anne has also developed a severe case of postpartum depression, which is being addressed with therapy but is still having problems.

"Each word, from first page to last, tugs and cajoles you right along, compelling you to want to know what happens next.... THE COUPLE NEXT DOOR is terrific from beginning to end, wonderfully told, and full of wrongs, bad intentions and evil actions."

A party should be just what they need, but at the last moment their babysitter cancels. Cynthia has decreed the gathering to be a grownups-only affair, so the only solution from the viewpoint of Anne and Marco is to attend with an infant monitor in hand, and to alternate checking on Cora every half hour. What could go wrong, given that she’ll be right next door, mere steps away?

As it turns out, plenty could go wrong, as would be easy to guess from the book’s first page. Naturally, Cora, after being checked at 12:30am, does a Houdini when the party is over a half hour later. The book may be about everyone else, but it is Detective Rasbach, the law enforcement officer assigned to investigate the apparent abduction of the missing child, who you will remember when the dust settles and the smoke clears. Rasbach is constantly thinking, examining alternatives, studying clues and holding them up to a filter darkly tinted.

What is Baby Cora's fate? Has she been abducted by a stranger? Murdered by one --- or both --- of her parents? Or is it something even worse? Everyone (well, almost everyone) who is involved is lying and concealing and deceiving, moving in all sorts of different directions, and moving backwards and forwards and sideways in time. Rasbach uncovers a couple of things, but it is the parties themselves who more often than not reveal what they attempted to hide in the short and long term. Surprise follows surprise, but things really begin rolling when Lapena lights the fuse on a long string of firecrackers about halfway through the book. The fireworks are still going off even as you read the last sentence.

THE COUPLE NEXT DOOR is terrific from beginning to end, wonderfully told, and full of wrongs, bad intentions and evil actions. You might guess part of it, but certainly not all of it. And the film will never be as good as the book, I guarantee.