Book Log 2020 #30: The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

Rachel Watson commutes to London every day, and in the morning her train slows down right at the point where she can spend a minute looking at her former home, now occupied by her ex-husband and his new wife. She also gets to see a couple who live a few doors down, who are usually eating breakfast on their deck. Rachel creates a bit of a back story for them, names them, and enjoys her daily ritual.

Until the day she sees something while passing that changes everything (as the dust jacket would say). Rachel wants to intervene, but she's hampered by being an alcoholic, to the point that she regularly calls her ex while drunk and then has no memory of doing so. Turns out she may do more than just drunk dial, and she rapidly gets entangled in a missing persons case involving her ex, his wife, and the other couple.

This book was quite a phenomenon, which makes some sense given the plot twists and Rachel's role as a highly unreliable narrator (two other characters also narrate, to certain degrees of reliability). I do agree with some of the reivews that found Rachel's actions to be excessively illogical, but having never been in her mental state it's hard for me to say how legitimate that criticism is. If nothing else it's a reasonably well written mass market psychological thriller that will provide enough distraction to keep you from snooping on people during your commute.