Mary Kubica leads us down the garden path in “Just the Nicest Couple” as we meet two seemingly lovely couples, each of whom could fit the title of “nicest couple.” However, as we quickly find out, neither of them fits that description. Both couples have their own problems, and as we learn more and more, we see just how serious—and how deadly—those problems might be.

Nina is concerned when Jake, her neurosurgeon husband, goes missing. But they’d just had a fairly vicious fight, and she fears that he’s left, if not for a few days, perhaps permanently. On the other hand, the other couple, Christian and Lily, appear to be deeply in love. Lily is still in the precarious early stage of pregnancy, and given her previous miscarriages, Christian tries to make sure Lily is kept calm and well-supported. But when Jake goes missing, Lily’s behavior changes, and she has a confession to make.

We learn about the characters through the first person narratives of Nina and Christian. Nina’s narrative explains that her marriage with Jake was on the rocks. And we come to think that Dr. Jake Hayes is a real jerk, a narcissist. He made Nina choose between her mother and him, so even though her mother raised her single-handedly and they were extremely close, Nina spent weekends with Jake instead of visiting her mother. Her mother wasn’t welcome at Jake’s house, and what Jake wanted, Jake got. But her mother’s diagnosis of macular degeneration changed things. Her mother’s vision deteriorated, and Nina needed to drive her to doctor’s appointments and to get groceries. Some of that had to be on weekends because Nina taught high school during the week. And that really riled Jake. He wasn’t used to coming in second.

Lily and Nina met at the high school where they worked together. While Nina taught English, Lily was a math teacher. In fact, she and Christian met in a math class in college. While Christian is successful as a market analyst, his income is nowhere near that of successful surgeon Jake. When Lily confesses that she happened across Jake the afternoon that he went missing and that they had an altercation, Christian is worried that Lily might be blamed for Jake’s disappearance. But as Lily explains the circumstances of their encounter in a nearby forest preserve, he doesn’t blame her at all. In fact, we see that Christian will go to extreme lengths to shield Lily and their unborn child.

What follows is almost farcical—in a really thrilling way—as Christian tries to protect Lily, and Nina tries to figure out what happened to Jake. At first, Nina believes that he left her, but after realizing that he didn’t return to work and hasn’t been at work since, she fears foul play. Jake lived for his work, he loved his job, and there’s no way he wouldn’t have been at work if he was able. The clues abound, the suspects are many, and there are definitely red herrings galore. What happened to Jake?

Kubica must delight in the knowledge that she has thoroughly misled us, and when we finally see the misdirection, much to our chagrin, we still can’t identify the culprit. This is a quick read because the characters are likable but even more because we really, really want to know whodunit. And why.

Really.

Please note: This review is based on the final, hardcover book provided by Park Row Books, the publisher, for review purposes.