The Expats by Chris Pavone

The Expats are an American couple with two children who move to Luxembourg and then Paris, both of them keeping huge secrets from each other. Chris Pavone's novel has been compared to Robert Ludlum's early works. That was enough to make me want to read this book; I went through a bit of a spy thriller phase in the 80s and Ludlum was my favourite back then.

I've only got good things to say about The Expats:

• It's a first novel, which in itself is an attraction for readers like me who like novelty.
• The plot is enjoyably twisty.
• The narrative flips back and forth in time, with convenient font changes to keep present-day Paris separate from two years earlier in Luxembourg. 
• There are enough details of daily life in a foreign country to feed my appetite for travel writing. 
• The children are never in danger.
• The open-ending is of the sort that concludes the main storyline while leaving lots of room for imagining what might come next.

Highly recommended.