What do we really know about other people, even those closest to us? In one of Chekhov’s most famous stories, the supreme adulterer Gurov takes the view that authentic life is always lived in secret (though, of course, he would say that). Marriage offers no ready access to another person’s history, as a young wife discovers in Ian Reid’s début novel, The End of Longing. Her problem of knowledge has graver implications than most, since her husband’s closet of secrets might well include a murder or two.