Apple Tree Yard: From the writer of BBC smash hit drama 'Crossfire'

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You know right from the start that the adulterers are on trial for a serious crime. You're not quite certain exactly what crime brings them to the Old Bailey. The court trial is interwoven with the commencement of the affair as bits and pieces of all is revealed. There was a point when author, Louise Doughty made me gasp and to tell you why would be a spoiler. Suffice it say that I admire Doughty's ability to bring the story full circle realistically. Each reader will make their own moral judgment of the characters guilt in both infidelity and in trial. Fling, cheating, love? What brings two people to this place? I loved it. Maybe the man she met, when she was giving evidence to a Select Committee at the Houses of Parliament saw that. And maybe she saw something in him. Or maybe it was a classic coup de foudre. Whatever it was, they fell into an intense, physical affair. This book deserves a really high score .... for implausibility. I just couldn’t take it seriously at all because the whole plot revolved round a premise that is about as likely as meeting aliens from Alpha Centauri buying hot cross buns in your local supermarket.

Apple Tree Yard does feel like a very female thing. And that’s good. Female in a positive, powerful, celebratory way, too. Although I didn’t feel much of a bond with it, or with Carmichael – in spite of Watson’s excellent performance. Or with Chaplin either, to be fair, but his is more of a role than a character. This is about her, and because this part is all about how she feels, it would help if I felt more for her.A lingering look is all it takes to make her follow a stranger to the damp crypt of a London cathedral. The passionate tryst with a man whose name she doesn’t even know explodes into an affair and Yvonne’s well-organized life and her comfortable, though passionless, marriage, crumble like a dried-out scone. Apple Tree Yard by Louise Doughty is one of those psychological thrillers that you are compelled to read by just the blurb alone. Then, just when we thought we could all relax and live happily ever after, there was a final twist of the author’s knife. Naughty Louise Doughty – that was so sneaky!

I am just not sure what the book set out to achieve. I listen to audiobooks when I am doing the housework and what this book achieved for me was to make the housework seem more pleasurable than this humourless and depressing story. Those of my friends who know how much I like housework will realise this is a huge achievement. Yvonne is a successful middle-aged geneticist, highly respected in her field and happily married with two grown children. It may seem strange that she would risk all this for illicit sex with a stranger who won't even tell her his name, but little by little, it becomes clear that neither her work nor marriage are as perfect as they seem. Doughty masterfully reveals the small resentments simmering under the surface. At one point, Yvonne recalls that she and her husband decided to combine childrearing with working on their PhDs, and dryly concludes: "Guy completed his PhD in three years. Mine took seven. Funny that." Also, kindly Guy does a very shitty thing which makes Yvonne's infidelity seem kind of lame. By the time she rushed into her shower, I was screaming at the screen: “NO, NO, don’t shower, don’t destroy the evidence, call the police, call them NOW!” I was so vexed, and could only watch in despair as she then bagged up and went to bin the clothes, too. There was one moment of hope when the scientist in her suddenly seemed to realise what she was doing, and she took them to a police station. But after sitting outside she bottled it, or so I thought… In the aftermath of what has happened, a devastated Yvonne shuts down. She feels unable to talk to the police or her husband, but as a campaign of terror is mounted against her, she is pushed to her limits and turns to her former lover, Costley, for advice. They meet for one last time and share a passionate afternoon together, before Costley takes control of the situation and Yvonne is plunged from one nightmare into another. It was a story of the consequence of deceit, and of the way those consequences can spiral. It was perfectly observed, it was clearly carefully researched, and it made some telling points about 21st century society. But that never overwhelmed the story of one woman, who made a mistake, and had to deal with terrible consequences.Spoilers for Apple Tree Yard episode 3 below. Still catching up? Read Sarah’s review of episode 2 here. This book tells the story of Yvonne Carmichael a woman in her fifties, married with two grown up children and a great career. One day she makes a choice that ends up putting her on trial in the Old Baily for the most serious of crimes. Everything we have worked for, everything we have tried to protect – it is all about to tumble… Everyone is fixed on me – everyone, my love, apart from you. You are not looking at me anymore."

I have always been interested in stories about marital affairs. Don't judge me by this as I've never had one and have no intention of joining the rank and file. I'm just curious as to what happens in a marriage that causes the stray. Yvonne Carmichael is a highly respected geneticist, married for many years to her husband Guy. Yet in an impulsive moment, she falls into n erotic affair with a man she calls “X”. In the months to follow, they meet clandestinely, each not willing to jeopardize his or her marriage and Yvonne only learns the barest details about “X’s” life. And then something horrendous happens that shifts everything into high gear and inexorably links their fates. Like all tragic figures, Yvonne has a lot to lose. She is happily married to a fellow research scientist with two grown-up children and an esteemed academic record: “I am fifty-two. I have status and gravitas – when I don’t have my tights round my ankles in a secluded chapel beneath the Houses of Parliament, that is.” Yet the analytical part of her mind cannot help but try to determine the significance of the anomaly: “In science we accept aberrations. It is only when aberrations keep happening that we stop and try and look for a pattern.”Her lover Mark Costley, who had killed him, was sent down for manslaughter, but after hearing about his gross philandering we had long stopped caring about him.