Both these books base themselves on do-gooders who prove that “no good dead goes unpunished”.
In “The Innocent”, you constantly are unsettled by the fact that an innocent person was unjustly accused and served time in jail, and how one mistake changed that “good” person’s life forever. When after several years more bad things start to happen, he and his pregnant wife have to go beyond the law to try to figure out what is going on and both she and he discover some interesting facts about their lives prior. It has enough twists, turns and emotional upheavels to keep you unsettled the entire way through, and manages to lift you back up at the end so you feel everything has been set right.
In “Lying with Strangers” you also get that unsettled feeling of someone who you think is trying to do what is right but as with the “Shopaholic” books, a lot of what people see is not exactly what is happening so wrong assumptions are made that tend to tumble and escalate out of control. You just want to kick some of the characters in the pants, tell them to stop their running off with the wrong conclusions and wonder if it all will be set right in the end.