The Death of Us

A DIVORCED COUPLE reunites for the sentencing of the serial killer who shattered their lives in this moving literary thriller from bestseller Dean (Day One). Thirty years ago, the South London Invader broke into the home of playwright Isabel Nolan and her husband, lawyer George Hennessy. The couple made it out shaken but alive; their relationship, however, never recovered. Decades later, the Invader—retired policeman Nigel Wood—has been caught, tried, and convicted, and Isabel and George, now in their 50s, are preparing to deliver victim statements before his sentencing. The story mostly unspools through Isabel’s testimony, in which she recounts her and George’s tumultuous marriage and addresses her assailant with all the emotion she no longer dares to share with her ex-husband. Her decision to publicly out herself as a victim of the Invader helped bring the killer to justice—and helped her find her voice as a writer—despite protestations from the fiercely private George. That rich dynamic, plus a poignant subplot about the orphaned daughter of one of the Invader’s victims, add texture and novelty to the narrative. As in her two previous works—Girl A, which focused on an adult survivor of parental abuse, and Day One, which depicted the aftermath of a school shooting—Dean transforms tragedy into art with surgical prose and a steely gaze. It’s a triumph. Agent: Jenny Bent, Bent Agency. (Apr.)