Other Women by Emma Flint review – a gripping dissection of an affair

Inspired by a real-life murder case in Eastbourne a hundred years ago, Emma Flint’s artfully constructed thriller tells of a love triangle that culminates in tragedy. It features Beatrice Cade, a thirtysomething typist in the early 1920s who resides in a room at a ladies’ club in Bloomsbury. Beatrice has reconciled herself to being single, childless and invisible – she will later be described by a lawyer as “the kind of woman you fail to notice on the omnibus every single day” – until she catches the eye of Thomas Ryan, a charismatic new salesman at her firm. Thomas, she learns, is married, though he persuades her that he and his wife are desperately unhappy, leading him to seek intimacy elsewhere.

The book alternates between Bea’s story and that of Kate, Ryan’s wife, who is shocked to open the door to two policemen asking questions about her husband and the death of a woman in her 30s. “I don’t understand, I am only his wife,” she tells them.

Sara Poyzer is the voice of Bea, her narration capturing her vulnerability and independence, while Chloe Massey is Kate, whose bewilderment turns to horror as the evidence of a terrible crime builds up against her spouse. This is less a whodunnit than a gripping dissection of an affair, a murder and a highly publicised court case. Flint deftly weaves in some post-war social history too, highlighting the plight of the “surplus women” on whom society typically looked down and who faced uncertainty in the aftermath of war.

• Other Women is available from Picador, 11 hr 32 min.

Further listening

My Favourite Mistake
Marian Keyes, Penguin Audio, 15 hr 35 min
A successful middle-aged woman living the high life in New York chucks it all in for a quieter life in an Irish town where she encounters an old flame. Read by the author.

An African History of Africa
Zeinab Badawi, Penguin Audio, 15hr 32min
A comprehensive guide to Africa, written from an African perspective, from the origins of Homo sapiens in east Africa to the continent’s colonial struggles and path to independence. Badawi reads.