oooh I wanted to love this one, I did. And the inner story, the mystery and the twists was actually very well done and I enjoyed that part. The part I struggled with was the writing/story telling style. The POV jumped all the time - it didn't seem to have any telltale signs to point out it was moving person to person, it just jumped. The beginning was overwhelming as so many characters are introduced in rapid, quick succession and I struggled to remember which was a wife, an ex and who they belonged to.

But the mystery was interesting, I didn't know quite what was going on until the trial and the ultimate reveal. It was interesting but I definitely struggled.

I was lucky to receive a copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review and opinion. Adam Mitzner is a new author for me and I was very excited to read this based upon the description of the book. I enjoyed the book however I didn't love how the narration varies from chapter to chapter and focuses on the different characters. I did like how the story was revealed little by little and truly kept me guessing. I highly recommend this to anyone who appreciates legal thrillers.

This book .. oh this book. I couldn’t put it down .. I had to know what happened. It held my attention from start to finish. I definitely would recommend it!

I wasn't able to complete this book before it was archived, so I downloaded it on Audible! If you're a thriller lover like me, you're going to want to pick up this book. Mitzner does an excellent job staging his plot and weaving in just enough characters to keep you guessing along the way.

Set in New York City, "The Perfect Marriage" focuses on an art dealer celebrating his first year of marriage to his new wife. James' & Jessica's happy life is currently being tempered by his crazy ex-wife Haley & her son Owen, who is fighting cancer. While dealing with both of these issues, James is found murdered in his office as his stepson receives treatment at nearby Sloan Kettering.

Immediately, several suspects come to light, including James' business partner Reed, who is very dark & shady; his ex-wife Haley, who continues to stalk James & Jessica and has a restraining order against her; and Jessica's ex-husband Wayne, if only because she had an affair with James when they were still married. Flash forward through the muck & DNA comes to light & begins to play a major role in the case. The story continues to weave & keep the reader wondering how this is all going to play out, when the DNA shows that it wasn't Wayne or Haley at the scene, but Owen! Cue the drama!!

Owen thought James was cheating on his mom, when in fact James was actually working with an FBI agent to bring down his business partner, Reed. Owen killed James in a fit of rage, hoping to save his mother from a broken heart. What a ride!

Loved this book! In the beginning there ate many characters introduced so you have to keep up and with their past lives. The book starts getting a good pace after about 70% and the ending is very twisted. Recommended!

This book was very hard to get into until half way through. There were too many characters and the way the author went back and forth between characters was confusing. I did not like who the killer eventually turned out to be. All in all a very average book.

Not sure I would have titled this as such. Seems that there were no perfect ones identified in this story. There are many characters that are married, have been married, divorced, want to be remarried, vengeful and resentful partners——they’re all represented here.
   The “perfect marriage” of Jessica and James has a few cracks in its armor that you come to discover.
   One of the sources of the dent in this perfect relationship is a sick teenage child who needs costly procedures. As the family does not have the funds to make it happen, there are some shady deals that surface.
   The death of the “perfect” husband opens many doors as to who the killer might be ….so many characters have been thrown to the side of the road for this perfect marriage, so there are many motives.
   There is also the education of the reader to the medical disease/treatment of the sick teenager which is well done.
   As the reader I assumed what the course of action would happen to the killer but was very surprised by what the courts could/would do. An surprise ending for what I was convinced was the obvious outcome.
   A good read.

Excellent book! I read this in 24 hours as I could not put it down. The story has so many surprises. The characters are genuine and their interactions make this book come alive. I feel it is a must read!!

@1_page_turner

⭐⭐⭐.5
#theperfectmarriage #netgalley

Quick Read:
Crime
Infidelity
Betrayal
Stalking
Divorce
Childhood Cancer
Fast read by seasoned author. Typical murder mystery, not much for twists and turns. A little slow and dragging at times but I was totally intrigued and fully engaged during the whole read. I did like how the author was detailed about each subject (art, medical, court process) without going overboard. Also, I enjoyed how detailed the characters were, it really felt like you were interacting with them and I had a nice mental picture. I would read another @adammitzner book and would recommend #theperfectmarriage to others.

Thank you #netgalley and #thomas&mercer #amazonpubishing for a great book that was hard to put down!

This was an excellent story that kept me guessing until the end. Several characters had the motive for the murder, but I never really expected the one who was revealed. Another great story by a great author. Thanks for the chance to read this early version.

This book started out so happy and full of joy. Then the unthinkable happened and joy quickly turned into tragedy. The plot was chock-full of whodunnits. I really didn’t like anyone in the book as the author did a brilliant job of exposing everyone’s flaws and because of this, it held my interest.

Thanks to NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for my copy.

Adam Mitzner is a great legal thriller writer.

This book was good, especially the last 30 percent or so, but not one of my favorites of Mitzner’s. I felt it spent a bit too much time on the setup, with a lot of details and plot points about the underground art world that weren’t too dramatic or strictly necessary to the story. Or maybe this is just not an area that interests me. Regardless, it took until about 40 percent in for anything super interesting to happen. But from that point, we were off to the races.

At the end of the book is where the special Mitzner magic comes in. An ingenious and unexpected plot twist combines with Mitzner’s usual fantastic courtroom scenes to make this a really neat story. Here too, as always in Mitzner’s books, the reader gets great courtroom scenes peppered with accurate caselaw so that you might learn something new about the law.

I liked this book but I didn't love it. I was expecting a thriller and it didn't really feel like a thriller. I wasn't able to connect with any of the characters. I previously read Mitzner's Dead Certain and enjoyed that more.

The description of this book and the title is what drew me in at first. As I started reading, I enjoyed the plot of the book and trying to find out “who did it.” There were things about the book that I did not enjoy. I found it confusing how it switched from character point of views within the same chapter. I found myself having to re read parts because I thought I was still in one characters point of view, but it had actually switched to a different character and I missed it. I enjoy books that have character point of views separated by chapters.

As for the ending of the book, it was anti climactic. Although I initially did not guess that ending, when it was revealed I was not shocked or impressed. The ending definitely fell flat for me.

I will give this author another chance and read his other books in the future.

Why do I love a sullen stepchild? It wasn't a main part of the book, but I just love that part of a story. The mystery didn't come into play until about 40% in and then it became extreme on the police procedural side. Personally, I don't really like reading police procedurals. So my own personal enjoyment aside with that aspect, the prose was great. Many red herrings and I almost missed the major clue at the end.

I really need to buy more Adam Mitzner books. This was a unique style of writing, in that there were a LOT of characters and the narrators changed quite a bit without warning. The characters were flawed and the plot was ever twisting. The Perfect Marriage has similar qualities as the other Mitzner books I've read. The pacing starts slow and picks up speed. The characters are mostly unlikeable with the exception of Owen, but I also found myself empathizing with certain characters in certain situations. The characters are complex and largely imperfect, but I would have liked more development. There were not physical descriptions for all of them, and these would have helped me to envision them more clearly. I know the author practices law and that's something I appreciate in his writing- he knows his stuff.

Thank you to NetGalley, Adam Mitzner and Thomas & Mercer for the free e-book in exchange for an honest review.

This novel wasn't exactly what I was expecting, but it was no less enjoyable because of it. This one is much more of a slow burn, but so interesting trying to figure out which of these ridiculously spoiled rich people committed the crime. There is a lot of background before a crime is even committed and I found myself enjoying that quite a bit since it's unusual for a novel like this one. I also liked learning about their lives and seeing how screwed up people can get. Definitely an interesting read.

50 pages in and decided it’s not for me. A number of sexist and misogynistic lines made me go, “nah, not going to continue with this nonsense”.

DNF

Overall, I enjoyed the latest book by Adam Mitzner. I find his books to be quick reads and while I liked this one, I found the last 25% and the ending of the book fell a liitle flat....a bit ho-hum for me. I'd figured out "whodunnit" when DNA was mentioned. I agree with some of the other reviews about the paragraph changes being very abrupt (one minute talking about Jessica, and the next sentence talking about Owen, etc). I'm going to chalk that up to being an advanced digital copy and hope the breaks are more pronounced in the print book. It was hard to make such hard changes from one character to the next, Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced copy.

Author Adam Mitzner has written another good, twisty mystery with a heavy reliance on legal strategy. THE PERFECT MARRIAGE is the set-up for a cast of characters related to the marriage, who exhibit their happy, sad, envious, and angry feelings towards the couple. For this particular couple, their peripheral relationships are all heavily basted in emotional turmoil. The tale is a good one and the pages fly by as clues are dropped and evidence digested. This is a fast but exciting book. I received my copy from the publisher through NetGalley.