Friends, Lies and Alibis - Debby Holt (2011)

Merrily was Alison and Leah's childhood friend who disappeared from their lives 15 years ago. Now Alison bumps into her on a train platform, and discovers she's moving to Bath with her writer husband Christopher, leaving her only son Tom behind to finish his schooling. Christopher is truly an odious man - he constantly puts Merrily down, and is hardly faithful (as Leah can testify). So the pair of them make plans to break up their marriage. The two women have vastly different experiences of marital bliss - Alison is happily married to a doctor but is sad that her nest of four children is rapidly emptying. Leah is having to watch her ex-husband start a new life with another woman but always puts her own two kids ahead of any promising relationship herself. There are lots of laughs as their 'liberate Merrily' campaign unfolds. But amid the comic moments, readers are asked to consider whether there is ever reason to interfere in a close friend's marriage.

Debby Holt's 2011 novel Friends, Lies and Alibis asks the question: Is there ever a right time to break up your oldest friend's marriage? The summary says: "Fifteen years ago, Merrily disappeared from the lives of her two best friends, Alison and Leah. Now she's back, with a husband who is sapping the life from her. Christopher is a bully who's convinced he's God's gift to everyone, especially his wife. He is also unfaithful, a fact which Leah wished she had never discovered. Should Merrily's friends stand by and watch their old friend sink ever further into drab submissiveness? Alison, happily married to Felix, thinks they should do something. Leah, divorced with two young children, is less convinced. Nevertheless, she joins Alison in a plan to liberate Merrily. As the campaign unfolds, it has dramatic repercussions on the lives of all three friends, and produces consequences that they could never have imagine." Friends, Lies and Alibis is out in January.

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