The Woman in the Window (Morrow), a highly successful début novel by the pseudonymous A. J. Finn (thirty-eight-year-old Daniel Mallory, a former editor at Morrow), is a superior example of a subset of recent thrillers featuring “unreliable” female protagonists who, despite their considerable handicaps—which may involve alcoholism, drug addiction, paranoia, and even psychosis—manage to persevere and solve mysteries where others have failed. Its title evokes such best-sellers as The Girl on the Train and The Woman in Cabin 10, not to mention Gone Girl (in which the titular girl is the contriver of the mystery), while its frame of reference involves classic American noir films: Gaslight, Vertigo, Strangers on a Train, Wait Until Dark, Sudden Fear, Rope, and, most explicitly, Rear Window. Indeed, although the protagonist of The Woman in the Window, a thirty-nine-year-old child psychologist named Anna Fox, is wryly self-aware, her mode of narration resembles a film script. ...

A.J. Finn turns out to be the nom de plume for Daniel Mallory, an executive editor at Morrow, the book's publisher, with a special interest in mysteries and film noir. The Woman in the Window is his tribute to both genres and, let me say outright, he does them credit.... What this is is an intelligent, carefully constructed novel of psychological suspense that focuses on a single character whose moods, secrets and fears drive the plot. It's here, in that slow buildup, that Finn/Mallory shows his real talent. He's much more in tune with the intense characters of Minette Walters or Frances Fyfield.... Aside from a visit from a neighbourhood child whose family she's been watching, nothing much happens for more than 100 pages. I confess, I put the book down and might not have gone back but for this review. Other readers may do the same. Please slog on, there is a reason here.