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What Hannah does do well in The Couple at the Table is introduce each of her twelve characters and suspects to her reader with quiet ease. Hannah is clearly adept at this style of book and we have a great shift in perspective from character to character. The cast are quite eclectic, which made this book more interesting, especially in the early stages as the audience gets to know each guest. The timeline moves quite well between the past and present, which is marked out for the reader. The narrative is defined by some clear and flowing writing, with an obvious focus on the psychological, which I appreciated. The pace was too slow in my eyes, especially the middle section of the novel which really lagged. The second half the book seems to move up a gear as the police officers with their accompanying interview segments help draw the book to a conclusion. I didn’t guess the killer element of the tale at all, which is a plus for this crime fan! In the second half of the book the pace intensified as the case starts to close in, though I did not suspect who admitted to the killing and by the end, I was unsure if this person was the real killer or just taking the fall, that’s how much it plays with your mind.
The Couple at the Table seemed like a sure thing as the premise intrigued me and I loved The Understudy - a collaborative effort by the author and three other writers. The suspect group dynamic is truly excellent, this author is the queen of the quirky, oddly compelling character and this time there's a whole lot of them, all caught up in a case that even Simon struggles to solve. MY THOUGHTS: Lucy Dean describes her ex-husband William Gleave as 'like a computer that's only had a quarter of its software installed.' Which made me smile. At times the description could equally well have fitted DC Simon Waterhouse, a man obsessed with a crime, a murder, that appears to have no solution. I also am very fond of the Culver Valley series. But oh, dear this was AWFUL! I had to force myself to finish it. So, when I had the chance to read her newest story early, I was really excited. I had been waiting for the next Charlie and Simon for years, but I think I've waited too long. The magic I always felt between those two people waned in the meantime. And while I still love a lot of things like the writing, the dual timelines, the mystery, and of course Charlie and Simon’s interactions, the story just didn’t come up to my expectations. This doesn’t mean The Couple at the Table is a bad book. On the contrary! It just means I’ve grown out of this series.It most certainly is an intriguing book and if you like your plots to go over the same scene from numerous points of view then you will love this novel. Especially if you adore books with plenty of characters that will get on your nerves and have narcissistic qualities. These characters really grated on me after a while, which I find is the making of a good story, when I become emotionally invested and either love or hate the characters. What I love most about Sophie Hannah is that she takes an outrageous premise and lures you in with it as you NEED to know how it pans out. She then slowly and without fanfare teases the story out, leaving clues and red herrings aplenty and then delivers an ending which you will rarely see coming but gives you great satisfaction. OK, so it's a closed room murder - someone died - every possible suspect ruled out yada yada. Here we go, let's settle in to see how this unfurls.
There are plenty of suspects, but not many whom we get to know well. Lucy Dean is the main player. She is the ex-wife of William, whose new wife has been murdered. Not only did she and partner Pete attend William and Jane's wedding, but they turn up at the resort where William and Jane are honeymooning. An uncomfortable situation? You'd think so. Do either couple leave? Where would be the fun in that? This is the second book I've read by Hannah and a second 2-star read. The summaries are so tantalizing but I am just not loving it (perhaps the ones I've chosen are just the middlers). Funnily enough, I had sworn off Hannah after I read the first book but saw her in a mystery writer's discussion last year and found her so funny and charming that I felt like I needed to give it another go. I'll try another at some point but fear she may need to go on the same list I keep Ruth Ware books on (as in, "It sounds fantastic but I just know disappointment awaits. But do give the summary writers ALL THE APPRECIATION because they almost sold me!") When someone, however, is discovered dead within hours of dinner, it appears the threats weren’t empty after all. To top off the oddness surrounding the case, it becomes evident to the police that no one from outside could have committed the murder and all of the guests have alibis. This leaves the detectives spinning their wheels as they try to figure out the impossible. Who is the murderer? And are the remaining guests potential victims or perpetrators? In The Couple at the Table, a woman is murdered at a couple's only retreat. She was sent to warning letters prior to the murder, one saying "Beware of the couple at the table nearest to yours" but all the tables were as close to one table as they are to another. Why would you send someone a warning letter that does not assist them?I'm definitely in the minority here. I really didn't like this book. What a disappointment for the book that is supposed to be the 'impossible to solve mystery book'. Of course it is entirely possible but it will bug you as to the solution right up until it is revealed...so addictive, beautifully written and full of red herrings. Six couples are seated for dinner at six different tables an equal distance away from the others. One of the couples receives a note stating that they should beware of the couple seated the nearest to them. Who could they mean? When a death follows the note's arrival it seems that its contents were truthful and the race in discovering who the sender is and who they were referring to is on. Jane also managed to upset everybody else at the resort, so there are plenty of suspects for Waterhouse and Zailer to investigate, although as everyone has an alibi, getting to the bottom of the matter proves rather difficult indeed. Sophie has also published five collections of poetry. Her fifth, Pessimism for Beginners, was shortlisted for the 2007 T S Eliot Award. Her poetry is studied at GCSE, A-level and degree level across the UK. From 1997 to 1999 she was Fellow Commoner in Creative Arts at Trinity College, Cambridge, and between 1999 and 2001 she was a fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford. She is forty-one and lives with her husband and children in Cambridge, where she is a Fellow Commoner at Lucy Cavendish College. She is currently working on a new challenge for the little grey cells of Hercule Poirot, Agatha Christie’s famous detective.
I cannot believe I'm giving a Sophie Hannah novel one star. I love her writing - read everything she's written and thoroughly enjoyed them all (though Haven't They Grown not so much) as she creates gripping thrillers with a fantastic - and intriguing - core premise. Read her short story The Octopus Nest to see this at its best. I really wanted to love this one as I usually enjoy Sophie Hannah’s work, but this one is not as good as others I’ve read by her. The premise is there, but the execution falls flat. As I said it is a complex murder mystery, and at times it became a little too convoluted and confusing. I resorted to drawing diagrams at one stage to straighten everything out in my head. But The Couple at the Table is wildly entertaining and a satisfying read.I’m a newcomer to Sophie Hannah’s work but have heard good things, so was keen to read The Couple at the Table, despite it being the latest book featuring series characters Detective Constable Simon Waterhouse and his wife Sergeant Charlie Zailer. In this outing they find themselves at the centre of a murder investigation as someone offs Jane Brinkwood at the luxury couples-only Tevendon Resort while Waterhouse and Zailer are there as guests. Hannah sets up an impossible-to-solve mystery that wouldn’t feel out of place in the works of Conan Doyle or Christie. This is a puzzling but very fun murder mystery, and in the inimitable style of Sophie Hannah, you’re kept guessing right up until the end. I had no clue about what had happened and couldn’t have guessed it at all before the end but, as expected, I loved the journey to get there! The Couple at the Table reads like an old-fashioned murder mystery and a psychological thriller rolled into one. The plot is simple in terms of the murder, however, the investigation and the toing and froing between the characters and timeline make sure you have to read the book slowly and take everything in as at times it comes across as a little confusing. It took a few chapters before I settled into this one but once caught up in the tangled lives and stories, this became hard to put down. I'd say that in comparison with the earlier books in the series, this is lighter, without the same intensity of trauma and troubled characters. We see a lot of this novel from Lucy’s point of view. She’s the ex-wife of William, who is married to Jayne, the murder victim, and she happened to be staying at the resort at the time of the murder too! Since her and William’s marriage ended on very bad terms, you’d think she was suspect number 1. And yet, we soon find out there are a LOT of people at that resort who disliked – perhaps even hated – Jayne, making it much harder for Simon (and Charlie) to work out what on earth really happened.
This book sounded SO unique and fun... You're on your honeymoon at an exclusive, couples only resort. One night at dinner, you receive a note warning you to beware of the couple across from you. Dotted all around you are couple sitting at an equally distanced table from you. Who is the note referring to? You're about to be murdered - but you don't know it. Once you're dead, all the evidence seems to imply that no one at the resort had anything to do with it. I don't know what happened here. It wasn't even that well written, it all seemed very grey and muffled - not her usual style at all. What a shame! I will continue to look out for her books though, maybe a blip? Let's hope so! The Couple at the Table has everything you want in a mystery – a cryptic threat, a murder, a closed circle of suspects and an unguessable solution. Completely ingenious, entirely satisfying – a delight from start to finish.” I didn’t realise going into this that it was book 11 of a series but it really did not matter. It is the police characters of Simon and Charlie that were recurring but this can easily be read as a stand alone.I think this will appeal to both vintage and modern crime readers as it somehow feels like both! You get the vintage crime vibe, but with lots of modern twists (n.b. all these twists and turns mean you need to pay attention). As well as creating her own characters, Hannah has penned novels featuring Hercule Poirot, and the denouement to The Couple at the Table feels like something Agatha Christie may have dreamed up – all the protagonists gather at the scene of the crime, during which the detective sums up exactly what happened before revealing the killer. I had such high expectations, but unfortunately reading became quite a chore. The characters behaved bizarrely and the whole story was slow and padded with irrelevant details and conversations. I realised after reading more than half, that there was no way the reader could work out what is essentially a closed room murder. Clues are few and far between, mainly consisting of people having lightbulb moments without any explanation. I have never met such ineffectual police officers, failing to ask pertinent questions until six months after a murder. Witnesses who lie and behave out of character, added to an implausible plot, huge numbers of characters and the sheer wordiness and length of this drawn out story, made this hard work. Alas, this was not the book for me. However, I will gladly read the next Sophie Hannah book in the hopes that it is a great one! This was a good read with an interesting synopsis but I felt that it dragged a little and became a bit repetitive.
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