There are but two "strikes" in a tennis "point." A marriage typically has many, but in most there are a finite, if unknown, number of opportunities to win or lose. Double Fault explores a relationship using that sports metaphor. With two highly competitive, driven individuals harnessed as the team, neither love nor marriage seems to have much chance of surviving their separate interests and egos. The novel successfully mimics the sport, a match where unforced errors as often as power serves or cross-court smashes determine the outcome--an outcome as predictable and unsatisfying as any in which one player significantly outranks the other. It is a match in which neither player seems deserving of an ovation from the reader. Shriver does "dark' as well as it can be done. She writes well. She makes me think. She is not afraid to be real.