Birthday Girl is , beautifully written and perfectly paced, slowly revealing secret after secret until you're not sure of anything anymore - only that ' - Elly Griffiths, author of The Ruth Galloway Novels New York in the 1990s - impoverished writer Jonathan Dainty takes his wife Maddie out to the beach for her birthday. Hours later he finds himself at the local police precinct trying to explain how on earth he let his wife get into a stranger's car, and allowed it to drive her away. More than twenty years later, Maddie is presumed dead and Jonathan has channelled his grief into a best-selling series of crime novels. As far as he can, he is living the perfect life. Then one day he catches a glimpse of his dead wife, moving through a throng of people. Is Maddie alive? Has she come back? And why does no one believe him? As Jonathan attempts to uncover the truth, it soon becomes clear that the people closest to him are hiding something, something that could change everything . . .