Book Review: Confessions on the 7:45

A chance meeting between two women on the train leads to twists and turns galore in Lisa Unger's psychological suspenser Confessions on the 7:45. Despite the picture-perfect life Selena Murphy has been curating on Instagram for the world to see — two cute sons, a charming husband, a well-paying PR job at a literary agency, and the perfect home anyone could ask for — the reality couldn't be any more further. In fact, her husband has lost his job and appears to be in no hurry to find to a new one, instead devoting his free time to having an affair with the nanny who is charge of the two kids. Thus when she meets Martha on the train ride back home, Selena blurts out her suspicions to her, who in turn confides a secret of her own: she has been having an affair with her boss. The revelations set in motion a chain of events when Martha begins to reach out to Selena out of the blue and the nanny mysteriously disappears. Bearing all the hallmarks of Patricia Highsmith's Strangers on a Train and Peter Swanson's The Kind Worth Killing, Unger deftly weaves together seemingly disparate strands, revealing plot elements bit by bit until the picture becomes clear just before things are wrapped up with a satisfying finale.