Apple Tree Yard A Novel Author:Louise Doughty An intelligent, erotically charged thriller with deep moral implications — Yvonne Carmichael, renowned geneticist, public authority, happily married mother of two, sits in the accused box. The charge is murder. Across the courtroom, not meeting her eye, sits her alleged accomplice. He wears the beautiful pin-striped suit he wore on their first me... more »eting in the Houses of Parliament, when he put his hand on her elbow, guided her to a deserted and ancient chapel, and began to undress her. As the barrister?s voice grows low and sinuous, Yvonne realizes she?s lost herself and the life she?d built so carefully to a man who never existed at all.
After their first liaison, Yvonne?s lover tells her very little about himself, but she comes to suspect his secrecy has an explanation connected with the British government. So thrilled and absorbed is she in her newfound sexual power that she fails to notice the real danger about to blindside her from a seemingly innocuous angle. Then, reeling from an act of violence, Yvonne discovers that her desire for justice and revenge has already been compromised. Everything hinges on one night in a dark little alley called Apple Tree Yard.
Suspenseful, erotically charged, and masterfully paced, Louise Doughty?s Apple Tree Yard is an intelligent psychological thriller about desire and its consequences by a writer of phenomenal gifts.« less
This book started out with a lot of potential and I was intrigued right away. But I felt the actual court case dragged and pulled the rest of the story down with it.