The Girl on the Train

Rachel Watson takes the same commuter train into London every morning, and every morning it pauses at the same signal, giving her a clear view of a house four doors down from the home she once shared with her ex-husband. From the window she watches a young couple she has never met, inventing perfect lives for them and clinging to the fantasy as her own life falls apart under the weight of divorce and drinking.

Then one morning she sees something shocking from the train, and days later the woman she has been watching is reported missing. Convinced she holds a piece of the puzzle, Rachel inserts herself into the investigation and into the lives of the people involved, even as her blackouts leave her unable to trust her own memory of that night.

Told in the alternating, unreliable voices of three women, Paula Hawkins's debut is a taut psychological thriller about addiction, obsession, and the gap between the lives we imagine and the ones people actually live behind closed doors.