Mary Torjussen’s suspense thrillers have all been hailed as suspense-filled (Gone Without a Trace; The Girl I Used to Be) and her newest, The Closer You Get, continues to deliver a nicely twisted psychological suspense novel.

She introduces readers to Ruby, who had fallen in love with her boss, Harry. Her marriage with the controlling Tom has long been over and it’s taken her a while to understand that he’s made her miserable. After a secret affair with Harry, Ruby prepared to leave Tom and Harry to leave his wife, Emily.

Their plan is to meet up at a pre-arranged hotel on a certain Friday night after telling their spouses they are leaving. Ruby girds herself, packs her car with those belongings she can fit in it, and waits for Tom to return from work. She announces she’s leaving him, and while he lets her go, she can’t believe it was that easy.

She waits at the hotel for Harry…and waits…and waits. Harry never shows up. Devastated, she finds on Monday she’s been fired from her job. Now she has no home, no job, and no self-esteem.

While she will eventually find out why Harry never showed, it does little to soften the blow or her situation. Renting a tacky apartment, Ruby takes a temp job and tries to pull herself together. That’s when she gets the distinct feeling someone has been in her apartment, which is strengthened when someone starts following her.

Is Ruby losing her mind? Or is there someone really out there menacing her. Ruby and Emily are finely drawn, and while each woman has her own point of view, the twists Torjussen builds into her plot will take unlikely turns.

An intense look at a torn marriage, an affair gone wrong, and tension that ratchets up and up as readers flip the page.