One of the hundred books a year I read:

Selena’s suspicions of her husband’s affair with their sons’ nanny have been confirmed. She isn’t shocked. He’s done this before, but for the sake of her boys, she’s begrudgingly accepted his promises to be better.

Distraught and deciding how to handle the situation, she gets onto the late train home and strikes up a conversation with a stranger in the seat next to her. The stranger, Martha, confesses she is having an affair with her boss and doesn’t know what to do. Shocked, Selena shares her own private woes.

Maybe, the stranger suggests, the nanny will just disappear and Selena can pretend nothing happened.

And then the nanny disappears.

The police, alerted by the nanny’s sister that she is missing, ask questions. Selena doesn’t know what happened, but nor does she know where her husband was after she had kicked him out of the house. Surely he couldn’t have done anything. He’s not a violent man. To protect her sons’ father, she doesn’t tell police about the affair.

Nor does she tell them the stranger on the train keeps texting her.

Lies and deceit have a way of unraveling in unexpected ways.