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Spilling CID #3
The Wrong Mother
Sally Thorning is watching the news with her husband when she hears a name she never thought she'd hear Mark Bretherick. It's a name she shouldn't recognize. Last year, a work trip Sally had planned was canceled at the last minute. Desperate for a break from juggling her job and a young family, Sally didn't tell her husband that the trip had fallen through. Instead, she treated herself to a secret vacation in a remote hotel. While she was there, Sally met a man—Mark Bretherick. All the details are the where he lives, his job, his wife Geraldine and daughter Lucy. Except that the photograph on the news is of a man Sally has never seen before. And Geraldine and Lucy Bretherick are both dead...
416 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2008
437 people are currently reading
5226 people want to read
About the author
Sophie Hannah
106 books4,516 followersSophie Hannah is an internationally bestselling writer of psychological crime fiction, published in 27 countries. In 2013, her latest novel, The Carrier, won the Crime Thriller of the Year Award at the Specsavers National Book Awards. Two of Sophie’s crime novels, The Point of Rescue and The Other Half Lives, have been adapted for television and appeared on ITV1 under the series title Case Sensitive in 2011 and 2012. In 2004, Sophie won first prize in the Daphne Du Maurier Festival Short Story Competition for her suspense story The Octopus Nest, which is now published in her first collection of short stories, The Fantastic Book of Everybody’s Secrets.
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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,227 reviews
July 2, 2020
Really pleasantly surprised with this!
I got given this book for free when a friend of mine was having a clear out. The blurb sounded intriguing but there isn’t even a synopsis on Goodreads for some odd reason.
Sally is married with two young kids while working full time. She is always stressed, tired and in a flap. But she wouldn’t change anything. When a work trip falls through Sally realises just how much she was looking forward to the break. So instead of telling her husband, she goes away for the week anyway for some “me time.”
While there she meets Mark Bretherick. They chat, drink and before you know it they’ve spent all week together.
After arriving home the news shows the death of a mother and her young daughter. Geraldine Bretherick and Lucy. But when they interview her husband Mark Bretherick, Sally recognises the name but the man on tv is a complete stranger. Who is the guy she spent a week with? And what really happened to Geraldine and Lucy?
I noticed a few reviewers said there were too many characters. I disagree, I feel there needs to be a decent amount in a thrilller in order to keep you guessing.
We follow the different police officers working on the case, Sally and excerpts from a diary found supposedly written by Geraldine Bretherick.
What I liked about this one is we get all the answers. It sounds lame but I love it when everything is tied up, there are no loose ends. If you’re someone who likes to guess whodunnit you might not be impressed because there is info withheld so I honestly think the chances of anyone working it out in advance are slim.
But it was a gripping thriller with morally grey characters all with well built personalities - I even laughed out loud a few times at some of them.
4 stars ⭐️
I got given this book for free when a friend of mine was having a clear out. The blurb sounded intriguing but there isn’t even a synopsis on Goodreads for some odd reason.
Sally is married with two young kids while working full time. She is always stressed, tired and in a flap. But she wouldn’t change anything. When a work trip falls through Sally realises just how much she was looking forward to the break. So instead of telling her husband, she goes away for the week anyway for some “me time.”
While there she meets Mark Bretherick. They chat, drink and before you know it they’ve spent all week together.
After arriving home the news shows the death of a mother and her young daughter. Geraldine Bretherick and Lucy. But when they interview her husband Mark Bretherick, Sally recognises the name but the man on tv is a complete stranger. Who is the guy she spent a week with? And what really happened to Geraldine and Lucy?
I noticed a few reviewers said there were too many characters. I disagree, I feel there needs to be a decent amount in a thrilller in order to keep you guessing.
We follow the different police officers working on the case, Sally and excerpts from a diary found supposedly written by Geraldine Bretherick.
What I liked about this one is we get all the answers. It sounds lame but I love it when everything is tied up, there are no loose ends. If you’re someone who likes to guess whodunnit you might not be impressed because there is info withheld so I honestly think the chances of anyone working it out in advance are slim.
But it was a gripping thriller with morally grey characters all with well built personalities - I even laughed out loud a few times at some of them.
4 stars ⭐️
April 11, 2010
The first fifth or so of this book was excellent - strong, unique voices and a perfect, slightly chilling tone to otherwise innocuous words. Then all sorts of little things came together to make the book dissatisfying. The cast of characters seemed too big for the author to handle, certainly too big for me to care about learning to distinguish them. There was one too many twist that seemed to come out of nowhere, while there was a really nicely laid foundation that wasn't used at all. And the book turned from chilling to just creepy at the end.
September 13, 2009
This book was SO good for the first 40 pages. I've come to the conculsion that anyone can write the beginning of a book. But few can write a good book through to a good conclusion. Sophie Hannah's book The Good Mother had all of the right pieces in it - interesting main characters, a twisting plot, a surprise ending - but it was all lost in the endless parade of sub-characters and characters with nicknames. Hannah could not handle the large cast of characters, that much was clearly evident. Her editor did her no favors either as the book becomes so bogged down in trivialities that it almost makes no sense. With a strong editorial hand, this book could have been 100 pages shorter and could have been a much better read. This book was dubbed a "psychological thriller" but it's just one big mess. Too many sub-plots, way too many characters, and even the interesting main characters were shallow and two-dimensional. Hannah cannot seem to write decent conversations, either. Her characters jump back and forth about so many different topics that it just became a giant 402-page muddle. Skip this one... life is too short.
October 22, 2013
I came across this series when I read a recommendation in a magazine for LASTING DAMAGE-the sixth book. At the time I thought LASTING DAMAGE was a stand alone novel so I went out, bought it, and then realized there were five books before it -I have this pesky problem of having to read books in the order they were written- so it took me awhile to track some of them down. NOW, it is not a problem because they have all be re-released -but a few years ago it meant ordering them online from different places and having to pay a 7 dollar shipping fee for each book.
Soooooo now that I have told you my sad tale...on to THE WRONG MOTHER. FYI- This is my favorite book in the series so far.
THE WRONG MOTHER takes us into the world of Sally Thorning, a well behaved wife and mother of two, who misbehaved for one week a year before, and now it is coming back to bite her in the buttocks. Coming to her rescue are the bickering duo of Spilling's CID, Simon and Charlie (female).
I have read some reviews on here that say that these books can be read out of order, or as stand-alones -but I have to politely disagree. To understand Simon and Charlie's strange relationship, and all the recurring characters themselves, I really think these books need to be read in order. In this book especially, Charlie makes reference numerous times to something that happened to her last year in THE TRUTH TELLER'S LIE-without ever telling you what it is. So if you have picked up THE WRONG MOTHER without having read LITTLE FACE, and THE TRUTH TELLER'S LIE, put the book down, step away from the book, and read the books in the order they were meant to be read in.
Soooooo now that I have told you my sad tale...on to THE WRONG MOTHER. FYI- This is my favorite book in the series so far.
THE WRONG MOTHER takes us into the world of Sally Thorning, a well behaved wife and mother of two, who misbehaved for one week a year before, and now it is coming back to bite her in the buttocks. Coming to her rescue are the bickering duo of Spilling's CID, Simon and Charlie (female).
I have read some reviews on here that say that these books can be read out of order, or as stand-alones -but I have to politely disagree. To understand Simon and Charlie's strange relationship, and all the recurring characters themselves, I really think these books need to be read in order. In this book especially, Charlie makes reference numerous times to something that happened to her last year in THE TRUTH TELLER'S LIE-without ever telling you what it is. So if you have picked up THE WRONG MOTHER without having read LITTLE FACE, and THE TRUTH TELLER'S LIE, put the book down, step away from the book, and read the books in the order they were meant to be read in.
November 29, 2012
I was intrigued by the book's opening...a woman is shocked to read of the murder of a man she had a brief affair with, except the photo of the victim shows a completely different man. Understandably, she has to try to find out what is going on. But I thought it went downhill quickly. First of all, there wasn't a single character I either liked or identified with. The men are almost all selfish idiots or brutes, the women all narcissistic whiners with infanticidal tendencies (except for the one who desperately loves a man who only loves her when she spurns him...and that's the CID officer!), and most of the children aren't very nice, either. I'm not sure if the author has children, but based on this book, I hope she doesn't and never does. As a parent, there are certainly moments when I've had enough, but these parents are filled with unending self-pity and the inability to say "no" to their children. Second, the plot is simply ridiculous. There are too many characters and too many voices, women and children disappear and nobody notices, there is a coincidental connection between the two characters (one being the police's consulting expert) that is just too farfetched to be swallowed, and, as another reviewer mentioned, the first woman we meet (who had the affair), after being kidnapped and tortured, discovering the identity of the murderer, and making a heroic escape, simply goes home and goes to bed.
November 21, 2010
Is Sophie Hannah a literary genius? Nah. But hey, all you haters — I invite you to try constructing a plot like this one: twisty, intricate, and relentlessly leave-'em-guessing. I was engrossed, and I admired this thriller all the way through. This story also hangs on some deliciously nerdy hinges: idioms, the way in which a native versus a non-native English speaker writes, and — be still my heart! — the perils of find/replace in MS Word.
The Wrong Mother will push buttons with mommies and the childless alike. Well, maybe "push buttons" is the wrong choice of words. It's bound to make everyone a little uncomfortable. I admire Hannah all the more for portraying a compelling range of mothers, and in such a way that one's feelings get all jumbled and turned around, like the unruly mix of Legos, blocks, and Hot Wheels that the kid has left lying about.
The tyranny of the blurb is in full effect here: Tana French's praise is on the front and the back. Looks like she branded some of Hannah's other books, too. Ick, but I can't say it didn't sway my decision to read this author whom I'd not heard of, and I certainly can't say I'm sorry that I did.
The Wrong Mother will push buttons with mommies and the childless alike. Well, maybe "push buttons" is the wrong choice of words. It's bound to make everyone a little uncomfortable. I admire Hannah all the more for portraying a compelling range of mothers, and in such a way that one's feelings get all jumbled and turned around, like the unruly mix of Legos, blocks, and Hot Wheels that the kid has left lying about.
The tyranny of the blurb is in full effect here: Tana French's praise is on the front and the back. Looks like she branded some of Hannah's other books, too. Ick, but I can't say it didn't sway my decision to read this author whom I'd not heard of, and I certainly can't say I'm sorry that I did.
April 6, 2014
Wow, I loved this book. It had so many twists & turns it kept me on the edge of my seat. It had many surprises throughout. This was one complicated story. I know there's probably a lot I missed, so some time in the future, I plan to revisit it. I got a bit confused & lost from time to time as there were quite a few characters & aliases. This piece had to be difficult to write! The only thing that bogged it down at times was Geraldine's diary. I realize it was necessary for the storyline and had one AWESOME twist however, it got a bit long winded. I finished this yesterday evening and I am still musing over it this morning. I honestly cannot believe this book has not been rated higher by others. To each his own, I guess. Some books that have such high ratings & recommendations, I have disliked immensely. This is one of the best suspenses ever. Great read!
February 7, 2014
I really wanted to love this book. The premise held such promise - I was really excited to read it. There were several stumbling blocks for me with this book. The first one was cultural - even though the book was in English, it was not an American setting. I felt like there were a lot of customs and insider knowledge that I just did not have. As such, there was a lot of the book that I didn't quite understand. Secondly, there seemed to be too many characters. The plot line with the Charlie/Sam could have been completely lifted from the book with little to no impact on the entire story. I also felt that there were some seriously grown up tendencies written into 5 year old girls - not really sure if I bought a lot of that. Thirdly, the plot was very confusing. I have absolutely no idea how the inspectors or officers ended up solving this crime. There were too many moving parts, and it really seemed a stretch to me. Again, I have a feeling that I must just be missing something plot wise, it was difficult to keep up. While the book fell shortly of my expectations on those levels, I must say that I was engrossed in the story. I REALLY wanted to see how it ended, otherwise I would have stopped reading, which I generally do when I am disappointed with a novel. The description of motherhood was interestingly appalling. In the end, I'm glad that I read it, but must say that I was disappointed.
November 8, 2009
I was disappointed in this book. The writing was awkward in some parts, especially the beginning. But after I got the hang of the author's style, I was able to get into the book. I was very eager to find out how all of the pieces fit together. But I was disappointed in the ending. Instead of answering my questions, it left me with more. For instance, why did Jonathan Rey have a different last name than his wife and child? How come Geraldine's mother and/or husband didn't know she was translating something for Prof Rey and saw him often? Why didn't the police quesion the whereabouts of the Amy Oliva's father? Why didn't they ask about him at the school? They could have easily found out his name and place of employment from the school. It seems like they would have looked for him when they found his wife and daughter dead.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 9, 2014
Like other reviewers who couldn’t muster a third star for this murder mystery, I lost track of (and interest in) the characters as the plot thickened. Alongside the requisite red herrings , too many sardines, mackerels and cops cods were there, muddying the waters in which the author had strewn plenty of clues. I couldn’t keep them straight after three chapters, so then I started reading only the lines between quote marks. That’s 300 pages of skipped narration. I think I would have enjoyed this story much more as its two-part ITV adaptation.
For one thing, Sally really doesn’t need to narrate her own story. Geraldine does, through the diary excerpts that bring her character to life, but not Sally, who is alive. On TV, we could cut between her story and the other subplots without constantly feeling like we’re following two different stories. Also, every name would have a face: cops, mums, dads, and all the others in between. I wouldn’t have had to allocate so much mental energy to so many details about the detectives: what Simon thinks of Kombothekra, why Charlie deleted Simon’s text message about The Snowman, whether Sellers’ wife knows about his affair with Suki Kitson, etc. These character quirks don’t even have anything to do with the case they’re trying to solve. They only got in the way of a potential page-turner, and ultimately they cost me the satisfaction of figuring out “whodunnit.”
For one thing, Sally really doesn’t need to narrate her own story. Geraldine does, through the diary excerpts that bring her character to life, but not Sally, who is alive. On TV, we could cut between her story and the other subplots without constantly feeling like we’re following two different stories. Also, every name would have a face: cops, mums, dads, and all the others in between. I wouldn’t have had to allocate so much mental energy to so many details about the detectives: what Simon thinks of Kombothekra, why Charlie deleted Simon’s text message about The Snowman, whether Sellers’ wife knows about his affair with Suki Kitson, etc. These character quirks don’t even have anything to do with the case they’re trying to solve. They only got in the way of a potential page-turner, and ultimately they cost me the satisfaction of figuring out “whodunnit.”
November 15, 2012
I started out really enjoying this book. It was suspenseful and thought-provoking for any mother who has caught herself wishing bad things for her children. What is the point of no return and what would it take for you to get there? But, what the heck happened to the end of this book? It was as if someone else wrote it on their coffee break. What happened to Sally? Wasn't she the main character? So, she gets abducted and escapes from an insane psycho and just goes home and goes to bed? And why the whole little story line about the cops? Did anyone reading even care if they got married or not? I didn't get it... (Added 11/15/12... I realize now that this is part of a series of which I did not read 1 & 2. I have recommended this series to several people. So I have adjusted my rating).
July 20, 2019
The Wrong Mother started out pretty strong and I liked the direction the book was heading. But it quickly got derailed with too many characters, too many coincidences, and too many unnecessary details that created confusion. While the end was surprising, at that point I couldn't bring myself to care.
April 14, 2017
Eh. I really liked this book until about the last 40 pages. The story was unique, had lots of twists & turns but towards the end got so confusing. Too many characters.
November 23, 2009
What an excellent thriller this was! I got it because it had a recommendation from Tana French on the back cover. French is one of my favorite new crime writers who managed to write an amazing first book and an even more amazing second book. I figured if she liked this one, I would, too. And I did!
This is one of those books that both excels past its genre and stays firmly in it. Hannah never breaks the rules of thriller in this book, but she expands the notion of what a writer of thrillers can do. All the things that you want from a thriller writer are here - tight and intricate plotting, suspense, and unexpected twists and turns. Add to those things compelling characterizations and deft writing and the book is successful.
I especially liked that Hannah was brave enough to allow one of her characters to express the dirty little secret of mothering small children - that it's hard, back breaking, frequently enraging work; that mothering is thankless and brutal; and that small children are often tyrannical in their power over us as parents. No, this isn't the only story to be told about mothering, but it is a part of the story - it's just the part we're all too uncomfortable to express. Express it Hannah does, and she expresses it with utter skill.
This was a great thriller and now I have to go find her other two novels! You should read this - it's really really good.
This is one of those books that both excels past its genre and stays firmly in it. Hannah never breaks the rules of thriller in this book, but she expands the notion of what a writer of thrillers can do. All the things that you want from a thriller writer are here - tight and intricate plotting, suspense, and unexpected twists and turns. Add to those things compelling characterizations and deft writing and the book is successful.
I especially liked that Hannah was brave enough to allow one of her characters to express the dirty little secret of mothering small children - that it's hard, back breaking, frequently enraging work; that mothering is thankless and brutal; and that small children are often tyrannical in their power over us as parents. No, this isn't the only story to be told about mothering, but it is a part of the story - it's just the part we're all too uncomfortable to express. Express it Hannah does, and she expresses it with utter skill.
This was a great thriller and now I have to go find her other two novels! You should read this - it's really really good.
November 8, 2009
Whenever I finally thought I had it all figured out, the author threw another twist into the plot, until finally, as the intrigue seems to be falling into place, it knots itself up again.
A murder mystery, a psychological study—these elements are set against an almost comedic exploration of the police detectives assigned to the case to form a multilayered drama.
There is nothing ordinary about this tale that begins with an affair and ends in death. Whatever might seem to be a predictable scenario is soon found to be anything but, and as we struggle to add up the clues, hoping to finally understand what happened, we keep bumping up against the incongruities, the misdirection, until finally we are desperate just to understand what happened and why.
Sophie Hannah's story is so brilliantly complex that I could not read it too late at night, for fear of nodding off and missing some key elements.
This is definitely not a pleasure read, despite some actually humorous aspects, like the relationships between the police detectives. A story that kept me on my toes and moving ahead to the final conclusion, The Wrong Mother: A Novel is definitely a five-star read.
A murder mystery, a psychological study—these elements are set against an almost comedic exploration of the police detectives assigned to the case to form a multilayered drama.
There is nothing ordinary about this tale that begins with an affair and ends in death. Whatever might seem to be a predictable scenario is soon found to be anything but, and as we struggle to add up the clues, hoping to finally understand what happened, we keep bumping up against the incongruities, the misdirection, until finally we are desperate just to understand what happened and why.
Sophie Hannah's story is so brilliantly complex that I could not read it too late at night, for fear of nodding off and missing some key elements.
This is definitely not a pleasure read, despite some actually humorous aspects, like the relationships between the police detectives. A story that kept me on my toes and moving ahead to the final conclusion, The Wrong Mother: A Novel is definitely a five-star read.
January 25, 2016
I usually really enjoy Sophie Hannah's books and I would still recommend them to any new readers. Having said that, this particular instalment is the weakest I've read so far.
A number of people have said they find the characters unlikeable and I agree. The only character I liked by the end of the book was Simon Waterhouse, and I was beginning to soften towards Proust a little bit. Charlie, I did not like this time around; it seems as though her relationship with Simon is a form of self-deprivation for her, and while that's not unrealistic it is depressing to read. Maybe it's naive to demand to like the characters in a book but presumably these books are being sold as entertainment, and 400 pages of immature behaviour from characters I don't like is just not that enjoyable.
I'm making the assumption that the heroine, Sally Thorning, is supposed to be sympathetic, but maybe she isn't. When she reads what is supposed to have been Geraldine Bretherick's (the murder victim's) diary, she assesses Geraldine's character as "narcissistic... her way is the only right way" yet every detail of the description could be applied to Sally if you take an uncharitable view of her, even though Sally is orders of magnitude less toxic. If Sally has been made deliberately unsympathetic then I admire the author's taking that risk, but it didn't pay off for me.
We all know that having two or more children under five is the very definition of hell on earth, and holding down a job at the same time is a few circles down that hell. But just to make the point, a major section of the beginning of the book is dedicated to Sally's complaints about basically every component of her privileged lifestyle and her disdain for everyone who supports it, especially the childminder whose criticisms of Sally seem quite accurate (and whose later actions come close to saving Sally's life). From the start, she is completely contemptuous and dismissive of her husband, whom she regards as an extra child who has to be fobbed off and kept strictly in the dark about everything. By the end of the book, this has not changed. In fact, all of the fathers in the book are disconnected, ineffectual and utterly incapable of protecting their families in an emergency. The one possible exception is Kombothekra, who is portrayed as possibly a good father but makes notably little impact in solving this case.
My biggest problem with Sally is her utter self-centeredness. The setup isn't new: heroine discovers emergency, cannot rely on police, does own investigation and finds the killer. What is different is that, this time, the problem isn't that the police are too dumb to solve it themselves (although they are rather dumb this time) but that Sally doesn't want to have to tell the police her secret, which, if it got out, would ruin her marriage. But, you know, this is an emergency: someone tried to push her under a bus, and now she's being followed.
Sally has to do SOMETHING, so what she does is... write a rambling anonymous letter - really emotional and overfilled with irrelevant detail while withholding anything actually useful, just to maximize the chances that the police will dismiss her as a crank - and leave it in the police inbox where it will lie unattended for several days. THEN she goes barging into the home of the grieving widower, asks him intrusive questions, rummages through his things, and steals photos of said wife and daughter. Pretty insensitive and hurtful, right? But surely she has a higher purpose. She's going right to the police with what she's found, right? Because two people have DIED here, the killer is at large, and the grieving widower is in danger of being accused of their murders.
But no. For reasons passing understanding, Sally's priority is still preserving her marriage, so off she goes to the victim's school and hamhandedly interrogates the staff, leaving them a false name to make sure the cops will take longer to find her when she disappears. Which of course she does, having painted a target the size of Wales on her foolish head.
When she finds a decapitated cat next to her car with tape over its mouth (a horrifying incident in a public place, which you'd think SOMEONE besides her would have noticed, but apparently not) her response is, of course, to dial 999 immediately, right? NO of course not. She goes into a cafe, sits down and starts scrawling yet another letter for the cops to find when they get round to it. Returning to her car (now with added dead cat feature), she finds that her water bottle has been moved; therefore she drinks from it and wakes up in what is basically Bluebeard's Castle.
Of course, Sally does manage to escape, and then she does one thing that others have criticised and in which I actually feel compelled to defend her. Once she gets outside the house and sees a clear path to the street, she is naked except for a thin dressing-gown which is heavily stained with menstrual blood. Deciding that she has solid reason to believe that her kidnapper won't be back soon, she breaks back into the house to wash and dress before she leaves, rather than walk down the street soiled and nearly naked. Honestly, I don't blame her for this. No doubt it's irrational, but she had just had a head injury and besides I think a lot of people would do the same.
It's just her *reasons* for doing it that I don't like, and her reasons are consistent with every choice she's made from the beginning: she wants to save face and keep up appearances in her marriage. I say this knowing how uncharitable it must seem, especially when she's traumatized and, as I mentioned, had a recent head injury. But on her way out of the house, she steals evidence, and you would think she'd be doing that to preserve it, right? Wrong. On her way home, she *disposes* of the evidence and the police only learn of its existence because she keeps part of it for herself and drops it on the stairs when she comes in. Because she doesn't want anyone to find out what happened to her.
I'd like to think she wouldn't have done these things if she hadn't been injured and traumatized, but like I said it's consistent with her reasoning from the very beginning of the story. Even at her most sympathetic, this character bothers me, because what happened *didn't just happen to her*. There's a murder investigation and in many ways she's obstructing it, and all because she values secrecy even over her own life, let alone anyone else's.
But she gets home safely and goes to bed and it was all a dream. So mission accomplished, right? Her family are all still there, all playing their old roles and hitting their marks and saying their lines, and she refuses to ever tell her useless husband anything because she has no real relationship with him anyway, and she returns to her mummy role having... learned... nothing? From a series of horrifying, life-changing and traumatic events.
There is a remark made by the sociologist about appearances being a matter of life or death to upper middle class families, so maybe the author is making a point about that too, but I doubt it. I just. Don't think much of the main character. I guess it's good that not every female lead needs to be a mega-competent Mary Sue, and it's great that Sally is human and flawed, but because I didn't think much of her I wasn't especially delighted at her happy ending.
Also, reviewers complaining about how hard it is to keep the large cast of characters straight, are right. It was hard to tell when they were referring to the two jerk cops versus the nicer ones, because all the detectives seem to have names beginning with S.
Also, Sally's best friend Esther, and Charlie's sister, both seem rather cocky and aggressive. I think they're the same character cloned with different names. The jerk cop's wife coming over in her nightgown to ask Charlie about her French homework is a scene that serves no purpose other than to trigger Simon into BRILLIANTLY! solving the crime, even though the line of reasoning should have been just as obvious to Charlie given her background in language teaching (or to anyone with any knowledge of computer forensics/a competent end user of word processing packages, even). If the diary was planted, how could anyone have thought that whoever planted it would leave the killer's real name in there?!? I've seen the "car chase where Simon explains it all" scene before and it was good the first time.
IDK, guys. I just had to get that off my chest. But like I said, normally I love Sophie Hannah's books so I'll just have to read another one as soon as I can so I can give it a glowing review.
A number of people have said they find the characters unlikeable and I agree. The only character I liked by the end of the book was Simon Waterhouse, and I was beginning to soften towards Proust a little bit. Charlie, I did not like this time around; it seems as though her relationship with Simon is a form of self-deprivation for her, and while that's not unrealistic it is depressing to read. Maybe it's naive to demand to like the characters in a book but presumably these books are being sold as entertainment, and 400 pages of immature behaviour from characters I don't like is just not that enjoyable.
I'm making the assumption that the heroine, Sally Thorning, is supposed to be sympathetic, but maybe she isn't. When she reads what is supposed to have been Geraldine Bretherick's (the murder victim's) diary, she assesses Geraldine's character as "narcissistic... her way is the only right way" yet every detail of the description could be applied to Sally if you take an uncharitable view of her, even though Sally is orders of magnitude less toxic. If Sally has been made deliberately unsympathetic then I admire the author's taking that risk, but it didn't pay off for me.
We all know that having two or more children under five is the very definition of hell on earth, and holding down a job at the same time is a few circles down that hell. But just to make the point, a major section of the beginning of the book is dedicated to Sally's complaints about basically every component of her privileged lifestyle and her disdain for everyone who supports it, especially the childminder whose criticisms of Sally seem quite accurate (and whose later actions come close to saving Sally's life). From the start, she is completely contemptuous and dismissive of her husband, whom she regards as an extra child who has to be fobbed off and kept strictly in the dark about everything. By the end of the book, this has not changed. In fact, all of the fathers in the book are disconnected, ineffectual and utterly incapable of protecting their families in an emergency. The one possible exception is Kombothekra, who is portrayed as possibly a good father but makes notably little impact in solving this case.
My biggest problem with Sally is her utter self-centeredness. The setup isn't new: heroine discovers emergency, cannot rely on police, does own investigation and finds the killer. What is different is that, this time, the problem isn't that the police are too dumb to solve it themselves (although they are rather dumb this time) but that Sally doesn't want to have to tell the police her secret, which, if it got out, would ruin her marriage. But, you know, this is an emergency: someone tried to push her under a bus, and now she's being followed.
Sally has to do SOMETHING, so what she does is... write a rambling anonymous letter - really emotional and overfilled with irrelevant detail while withholding anything actually useful, just to maximize the chances that the police will dismiss her as a crank - and leave it in the police inbox where it will lie unattended for several days. THEN she goes barging into the home of the grieving widower, asks him intrusive questions, rummages through his things, and steals photos of said wife and daughter. Pretty insensitive and hurtful, right? But surely she has a higher purpose. She's going right to the police with what she's found, right? Because two people have DIED here, the killer is at large, and the grieving widower is in danger of being accused of their murders.
But no. For reasons passing understanding, Sally's priority is still preserving her marriage, so off she goes to the victim's school and hamhandedly interrogates the staff, leaving them a false name to make sure the cops will take longer to find her when she disappears. Which of course she does, having painted a target the size of Wales on her foolish head.
When she finds a decapitated cat next to her car with tape over its mouth (a horrifying incident in a public place, which you'd think SOMEONE besides her would have noticed, but apparently not) her response is, of course, to dial 999 immediately, right? NO of course not. She goes into a cafe, sits down and starts scrawling yet another letter for the cops to find when they get round to it. Returning to her car (now with added dead cat feature), she finds that her water bottle has been moved; therefore she drinks from it and wakes up in what is basically Bluebeard's Castle.
Of course, Sally does manage to escape, and then she does one thing that others have criticised and in which I actually feel compelled to defend her. Once she gets outside the house and sees a clear path to the street, she is naked except for a thin dressing-gown which is heavily stained with menstrual blood. Deciding that she has solid reason to believe that her kidnapper won't be back soon, she breaks back into the house to wash and dress before she leaves, rather than walk down the street soiled and nearly naked. Honestly, I don't blame her for this. No doubt it's irrational, but she had just had a head injury and besides I think a lot of people would do the same.
It's just her *reasons* for doing it that I don't like, and her reasons are consistent with every choice she's made from the beginning: she wants to save face and keep up appearances in her marriage. I say this knowing how uncharitable it must seem, especially when she's traumatized and, as I mentioned, had a recent head injury. But on her way out of the house, she steals evidence, and you would think she'd be doing that to preserve it, right? Wrong. On her way home, she *disposes* of the evidence and the police only learn of its existence because she keeps part of it for herself and drops it on the stairs when she comes in. Because she doesn't want anyone to find out what happened to her.
I'd like to think she wouldn't have done these things if she hadn't been injured and traumatized, but like I said it's consistent with her reasoning from the very beginning of the story. Even at her most sympathetic, this character bothers me, because what happened *didn't just happen to her*. There's a murder investigation and in many ways she's obstructing it, and all because she values secrecy even over her own life, let alone anyone else's.
But she gets home safely and goes to bed and it was all a dream. So mission accomplished, right? Her family are all still there, all playing their old roles and hitting their marks and saying their lines, and she refuses to ever tell her useless husband anything because she has no real relationship with him anyway, and she returns to her mummy role having... learned... nothing? From a series of horrifying, life-changing and traumatic events.
There is a remark made by the sociologist about appearances being a matter of life or death to upper middle class families, so maybe the author is making a point about that too, but I doubt it. I just. Don't think much of the main character. I guess it's good that not every female lead needs to be a mega-competent Mary Sue, and it's great that Sally is human and flawed, but because I didn't think much of her I wasn't especially delighted at her happy ending.
Also, reviewers complaining about how hard it is to keep the large cast of characters straight, are right. It was hard to tell when they were referring to the two jerk cops versus the nicer ones, because all the detectives seem to have names beginning with S.
Also, Sally's best friend Esther, and Charlie's sister, both seem rather cocky and aggressive. I think they're the same character cloned with different names. The jerk cop's wife coming over in her nightgown to ask Charlie about her French homework is a scene that serves no purpose other than to trigger Simon into BRILLIANTLY! solving the crime, even though the line of reasoning should have been just as obvious to Charlie given her background in language teaching (or to anyone with any knowledge of computer forensics/a competent end user of word processing packages, even). If the diary was planted, how could anyone have thought that whoever planted it would leave the killer's real name in there?!? I've seen the "car chase where Simon explains it all" scene before and it was good the first time.
IDK, guys. I just had to get that off my chest. But like I said, normally I love Sophie Hannah's books so I'll just have to read another one as soon as I can so I can give it a glowing review.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 5, 2015
Surprisingly good!
Let me state that again for emphasis: This book was surprisingly good. Psychological Murder Mysterious are not my top reading genre, although I do enjoy them when I find one that can harness my attention. Not many can achieve this and to be honest I was apprehensive upon starting this book. It took me a little while to get a feel for the author's writing style and one of the lead characters voices so much so that until I was about a third of the way in I teetering on the edge of concluding was I going to continue or put this down. Was I into it or not? It took me a while to actually become sure. If I like a book, I tend to get very verbal and interactive with it. I noticed I started talking back to this book and realized "I was in" and kept going. I wouldn't say it's a slow starter but for me I wasn't sure where we were going until we got there. As one can see from my comments throughout, I kind of went:
"Okay.
I'm curious.
Well that's strange.
Hmmm
Whoa!
This is craaazy!"
So, not slow starting, maybe just building, is a good word. My advice is not to put it down but keep reading through the slightly odd because it gets good.
Four people are dead. Two are children. Two are mothers. One father named Mark Bretherick is crying on the news. Sally Thorning knows this name but the man on the news is not the man she knows as Mark Bretherick. This is strange to her. What is also strange is coincidentally the very same day someone tried to push her into traffic. What is going on Spilling, U.K. is the concern of several CID crime unit detectives who investigate this case. The general consensus is that there is a case of murder/suicide but detective Simon Waterhouse is not convinced. What is the truth and why is mother of two Sally Thorning involved?
This book, once I got a feel for it, kept me living on the edge of my seat. I just never knew what was going to happen next and of course I was constantly talking back to this book. It did get crazy. Having said that there were a few thins that kept it from being a perfect book in my eyes. Again it took me a little while in the beginning to get a feel for that main character, Sally Thorning because she was very rambling and off kilter. All the detectives, there were so many introduced at first it was slightly confusing to me but I did get the hang of who was who eventually. There was a diary that was referred to frequently and at length throughout. I get that the author made this an integral reference point to the story..but it got on my nerves after a while. "Oh, here comes the damn diary!" (Eye roll. Skim. Skim. Skim.) And I did feel like there was a slight rambling or delay at the end. As with all mysteries, there is that sort of "sum up" at the end. I felt like it had been summed up. We got the conclusion and then it was dragged on for two more chapters. I felt like, "Alright, Already. We got it and please don't pull out that damn diary again!" (Seriously!) But really all in all I thought it was a good read.
I'm giving it 4 stars. I would recommend it to mystery readers. I think I may try other books by this author. I liked that detective Waterhouse and could read more with him. This author definitely knows how to bring a wow factor and twist a mystery because I didn't figure it out. It was not predictable. Actually I didn't get it until Waterhouse explained. I don't see how the title fits.. But no matter, check it out.
Let me state that again for emphasis: This book was surprisingly good. Psychological Murder Mysterious are not my top reading genre, although I do enjoy them when I find one that can harness my attention. Not many can achieve this and to be honest I was apprehensive upon starting this book. It took me a little while to get a feel for the author's writing style and one of the lead characters voices so much so that until I was about a third of the way in I teetering on the edge of concluding was I going to continue or put this down. Was I into it or not? It took me a while to actually become sure. If I like a book, I tend to get very verbal and interactive with it. I noticed I started talking back to this book and realized "I was in" and kept going. I wouldn't say it's a slow starter but for me I wasn't sure where we were going until we got there. As one can see from my comments throughout, I kind of went:
"Okay.
I'm curious.
Well that's strange.
Hmmm
Whoa!
This is craaazy!"
So, not slow starting, maybe just building, is a good word. My advice is not to put it down but keep reading through the slightly odd because it gets good.
Four people are dead. Two are children. Two are mothers. One father named Mark Bretherick is crying on the news. Sally Thorning knows this name but the man on the news is not the man she knows as Mark Bretherick. This is strange to her. What is also strange is coincidentally the very same day someone tried to push her into traffic. What is going on Spilling, U.K. is the concern of several CID crime unit detectives who investigate this case. The general consensus is that there is a case of murder/suicide but detective Simon Waterhouse is not convinced. What is the truth and why is mother of two Sally Thorning involved?
This book, once I got a feel for it, kept me living on the edge of my seat. I just never knew what was going to happen next and of course I was constantly talking back to this book. It did get crazy. Having said that there were a few thins that kept it from being a perfect book in my eyes. Again it took me a little while in the beginning to get a feel for that main character, Sally Thorning because she was very rambling and off kilter. All the detectives, there were so many introduced at first it was slightly confusing to me but I did get the hang of who was who eventually. There was a diary that was referred to frequently and at length throughout. I get that the author made this an integral reference point to the story..but it got on my nerves after a while. "Oh, here comes the damn diary!" (Eye roll. Skim. Skim. Skim.) And I did feel like there was a slight rambling or delay at the end. As with all mysteries, there is that sort of "sum up" at the end. I felt like it had been summed up. We got the conclusion and then it was dragged on for two more chapters. I felt like, "Alright, Already. We got it and please don't pull out that damn diary again!" (Seriously!) But really all in all I thought it was a good read.
I'm giving it 4 stars. I would recommend it to mystery readers. I think I may try other books by this author. I liked that detective Waterhouse and could read more with him. This author definitely knows how to bring a wow factor and twist a mystery because I didn't figure it out. It was not predictable. Actually I didn't get it until Waterhouse explained. I don't see how the title fits.. But no matter, check it out.
May 9, 2017
OK I thought after I read "Little Face" I was done with Sophie Hannah, but I went back and did it again. Not a bad story but far too much detail on three different mothers (or maybe more, I lost track). Do we need to hear every blow-by-blow description of a working mother's afternoon? How is she special/different/unique? Maybe it's just me, but I always feel that less is more. Add to that a dysfunctional police force and felt like I was reading a soap opera mystery.
I said no more Sophie Hannah...until the next time.
I said no more Sophie Hannah...until the next time.
February 19, 2018
Yeesh! The first portion of this book was intriguing, but spun out of control shortly thereafter. A 402-page novel could have been a 200-page short story. And the 40 pages at the end that try to explain the convoluted plot are endless!
April 9, 2022
I have to go a little easy on this one as I jumped into a middle of a series and it made a difference to how I understood the story.
I loved the premise of confused identities. I loved the commentary of working mothers and stay home mothers and the right schools. I loved the narration by Sally. As mentioned the police procedure parts were confusing because I needed more background on the players.
I also took 8 days to read this which is about 50% longer than normal with the last three days on the last 50 pages because I kept falling asleep. There is star loss when this happens.
There is star gain however when I think I have it figured out and I am surprised by the ending. Which I was.
I loved the premise of confused identities. I loved the commentary of working mothers and stay home mothers and the right schools. I loved the narration by Sally. As mentioned the police procedure parts were confusing because I needed more background on the players.
I also took 8 days to read this which is about 50% longer than normal with the last three days on the last 50 pages because I kept falling asleep. There is star loss when this happens.
There is star gain however when I think I have it figured out and I am surprised by the ending. Which I was.
December 20, 2020
3 stars
I loved the second book so much that I bought the third one right away. Besides the case, we are following the lives of the CID officers and I found their lives interesting.
However, in this book, almost all of the officers are unlikeable. In the second book, yes, they were sometimes annoying. But in this book, I hated them. Especially Snowman and Sellers. The policemen here are misogynists, arrogant, insensitive, jumping to conclusions right away to make things easier. The only police officer I liked here was Simon. And Charlie, although I was annoyed with her sometimes, too.
And it's ironic because the author is a woman and yet, the male characters in this book looked down on women and are so very proud of themselves. And it was voiced that women who stay at home don't need a vacation. Like hell, is it that easy to stay at home and take care of kids and a husband who acts like a kid? (My partner and kid are both wonderful. This isn't personal as my partner doesn't act like a kid, unlike some of the men in this book.) Nick was a horrible husband and yet, Sally doesn't really, as in really, tell him to grow up and change his ways. Sam wonders why his stay-at-home wife is more tired than him at the end of the day. Sellers and the Snowman think wives should not be insecure or do anything to feel more confident, and yet, Sellers is having an affair with a younger woman. It's been a long time since I last read a book with horrible, annoying, unlikeable characters.
That thing with Stacey was convenient to how they solved the case and the reason why she came to Charlie's house wasn't brought up again. It was brushed away.
The redeeming part was the plot and the twists. They were cleverly put and placed and I didn't see them coming.
But, Sophie Hannah has a way of SHOWING the reader that the police has solved the mysteries and the case and then TELLING how they solved it. It would've been better if it was the other way around.
I have books 5, 6, 7, and 9 and I think I will read them in the future but might not bother to buy the books in between that I don't have.
It's frustrating as the plot was good but the characters were just not very kind or nice. Even the side characters were not likeable.
I loved the second book so much that I bought the third one right away. Besides the case, we are following the lives of the CID officers and I found their lives interesting.
However, in this book, almost all of the officers are unlikeable. In the second book, yes, they were sometimes annoying. But in this book, I hated them. Especially Snowman and Sellers. The policemen here are misogynists, arrogant, insensitive, jumping to conclusions right away to make things easier. The only police officer I liked here was Simon. And Charlie, although I was annoyed with her sometimes, too.
And it's ironic because the author is a woman and yet, the male characters in this book looked down on women and are so very proud of themselves. And it was voiced that women who stay at home don't need a vacation. Like hell, is it that easy to stay at home and take care of kids and a husband who acts like a kid? (My partner and kid are both wonderful. This isn't personal as my partner doesn't act like a kid, unlike some of the men in this book.) Nick was a horrible husband and yet, Sally doesn't really, as in really, tell him to grow up and change his ways. Sam wonders why his stay-at-home wife is more tired than him at the end of the day. Sellers and the Snowman think wives should not be insecure or do anything to feel more confident, and yet, Sellers is having an affair with a younger woman. It's been a long time since I last read a book with horrible, annoying, unlikeable characters.
That thing with Stacey was convenient to how they solved the case and the reason why she came to Charlie's house wasn't brought up again. It was brushed away.
The redeeming part was the plot and the twists. They were cleverly put and placed and I didn't see them coming.
But, Sophie Hannah has a way of SHOWING the reader that the police has solved the mysteries and the case and then TELLING how they solved it. It would've been better if it was the other way around.
I have books 5, 6, 7, and 9 and I think I will read them in the future but might not bother to buy the books in between that I don't have.
It's frustrating as the plot was good but the characters were just not very kind or nice. Even the side characters were not likeable.
December 19, 2009
I liked the style, alternating between Sally's first person perspective, the diary, and the third-person narration from the police. I found the first two-thirds pretty compelling, trying to figure out exactly what happened with Geraldine and her daughter, her daughter's friend, and what's happening with Sally. I also liked reading an honest summation of modern motherhood - trying to have it all, as it's just an expectation for educated, middle-class moms these days, and feeling guilt for not being able to achieve the impossible.
But the ending, well, I had a lot of problems with that.
First, I never felt like they properly explained why Hey's psychotic break (because that's obviously what happened) resulted in an obsession with impregnating Sally, and I felt like the end of Sally's part of the story was abrupt and I felt like it didn't have resolution - yes, she realized she loved her family, but wouldn't she have something to say about her ordeal beyond "gee, I'm glad Nick didn't find out I slept with a psychopath!"
For that matter, I felt the end of the whole thing was abrupt. This was the first of Hannah's books that I've read, and having now read Hurting Distance, I get the Waterhouse-Zailer relationship better, but for such an intense book, I was disappointed to have a sitcommy joke to end it.
But I liked the writing, the plot and the storytelling. I'll keep reading (I loved Hurting Distance), but I just wish the final third had been as strong as what preceded it.
But the ending, well, I had a lot of problems with that.
First, I never felt like they properly explained why Hey's psychotic break (because that's obviously what happened) resulted in an obsession with impregnating Sally, and I felt like the end of Sally's part of the story was abrupt and I felt like it didn't have resolution - yes, she realized she loved her family, but wouldn't she have something to say about her ordeal beyond "gee, I'm glad Nick didn't find out I slept with a psychopath!"
For that matter, I felt the end of the whole thing was abrupt. This was the first of Hannah's books that I've read, and having now read Hurting Distance, I get the Waterhouse-Zailer relationship better, but for such an intense book, I was disappointed to have a sitcommy joke to end it.
But I liked the writing, the plot and the storytelling. I'll keep reading (I loved Hurting Distance), but I just wish the final third had been as strong as what preceded it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 25, 2010
copied and pasted from my book blog, www.ourfictionaddiction.com
This was our book club’s selection this month and, from the jacket, I thought it was going to be one of my favorites of the year. As I made my way through the beginning of the book, I thought it had a lot going for it – a premise that seemed interesting, a few unraveling mysteries, a possible murder-suicide-familicide and a narrator that had the potential to be a unique, empathetic voice.
But unfortunately, it never picked up from there. I kept reading, hoping the plot would thicken, hoping that something would make it a worthwhile read. The main character was dull. I never felt a connection to her, didn’t understand her in the least. The sub-plots were so thin and undeveloped – and in fact, I was really disappointed with how undeveloped the story was as a whole. There were so many unnecessary characters that didn’t add anything to the story, characters that just didn’t make sense. As I described to Joyce (who is also reading the book), I felt like the book tricked you into thinking it was going to be better than it was. The ending was utterly disappointing.
“Oh, hey, surprise! You never suspected me, did you? Oh, good. I win.” It just pisses me off when authors resort to that kind of trickery without putting enough detail into the story to make it believable.
Maybe I’m being unfair. Maybe I was just so unnerved by the ending that I’ve written off the whole book as unworthy when it might have some redeeming qualities. But either way, I wouldn’t recommend it.
This was our book club’s selection this month and, from the jacket, I thought it was going to be one of my favorites of the year. As I made my way through the beginning of the book, I thought it had a lot going for it – a premise that seemed interesting, a few unraveling mysteries, a possible murder-suicide-familicide and a narrator that had the potential to be a unique, empathetic voice.
But unfortunately, it never picked up from there. I kept reading, hoping the plot would thicken, hoping that something would make it a worthwhile read. The main character was dull. I never felt a connection to her, didn’t understand her in the least. The sub-plots were so thin and undeveloped – and in fact, I was really disappointed with how undeveloped the story was as a whole. There were so many unnecessary characters that didn’t add anything to the story, characters that just didn’t make sense. As I described to Joyce (who is also reading the book), I felt like the book tricked you into thinking it was going to be better than it was. The ending was utterly disappointing.
“Oh, hey, surprise! You never suspected me, did you? Oh, good. I win.” It just pisses me off when authors resort to that kind of trickery without putting enough detail into the story to make it believable.
Maybe I’m being unfair. Maybe I was just so unnerved by the ending that I’ve written off the whole book as unworthy when it might have some redeeming qualities. But either way, I wouldn’t recommend it.
January 15, 2010
I had read a previous book by this author, Little Face, which I found to be pretty well-written. I liked the premise of Little Face -- a new mum goes to the gym because her mother-in-law and husband thinkshe needs to get out of the house, and when she comes home, she checks on her baby in the crib, but it's not her baby -- and nobody else in the house seems to think anything is amiss. The Wrong Mother was a bit more complex and better written. The protagonist, Sally, is the spitting image of another woman named Geraldine, whom she doesn't actually know. But a year ago, Sally had a brief affair with Geraldine's husband Mark. One night she sees her own face on the news -- except it's not her face, it's Geraldine's, and she's apparently committed matricide and suicide. Geraldine's grief-stricken husband Mark appears onscreen next, and Sally suddenly realises something is very wrong -- because the man she spent a torrid week at a hotel with is not the man she's watching on the news. Sounds confusing, and it can be at times, but it's well-paced and surprising. As often happens in thrillers, the ending is a bit rushed, and some of what seem to be important plot points aren't sufficiently explained. But I like the way the author eventually resolved things, and would recommend The Wrong Mother as a rainy-night read, or a summer beach read.
October 19, 2010
Usually, if I skip to the end of a book while I'm still reading it, it's for one of two reasons: either I'm so bored with the stupid thing I've decided to give up on the second half, or I'm so worried about a character that I need to check and see if he/she is still alive at the end, thus allowing me to get through the second half with relatively little anxiety.
This book falls into the latter category. I was so creeped out at one point that I was frozen for a minute, fighting with myself about skipping to the end for that reassurance (I resisted, but only after a stern mental talking-to).
It's not perfect. There are references to some traumatic event "last year" that's never really explained (or if it's what I'm thinking of: really? THAT'S the event that supposedly destroyed your life?). I did (sort of) figure out the mystery, and the author's use of 1st-person present tense for one character and the more traditional 3rd-person past for everyone else still doesn't make sense to me unless it was to really squick me out during one part of the book.
I was truly squicked out. I was also biting my nails and fighting the urge to snap at family members who had the audacity to try and talk to me while I was reading. I'll definitely read her other one. Also: I am sooooooooo glad I don't have any kids!
This book falls into the latter category. I was so creeped out at one point that I was frozen for a minute, fighting with myself about skipping to the end for that reassurance (I resisted, but only after a stern mental talking-to).
It's not perfect. There are references to some traumatic event "last year" that's never really explained (or if it's what I'm thinking of: really? THAT'S the event that supposedly destroyed your life?). I did (sort of) figure out the mystery, and the author's use of 1st-person present tense for one character and the more traditional 3rd-person past for everyone else still doesn't make sense to me unless it was to really squick me out during one part of the book.
I was truly squicked out. I was also biting my nails and fighting the urge to snap at family members who had the audacity to try and talk to me while I was reading. I'll definitely read her other one. Also: I am sooooooooo glad I don't have any kids!
February 25, 2010
If you like a good suspense novel with an original plot, you would like The Wrong Mother. A young mother, Sally, longing to escape the drudgery of every day life, has a week long affair with a man named Mark Bretherick. She ends up regretting her momentary lapse and is trying to put it from her mind when she hears the name again on the news. A Mark Bretherick's wife killed herself and her young daughter. The wife's name, address, child's name, etc. all match up with what Mark told Sally during the week. The only problem is, the Mark Bretherick on the news is not the same man. Sally feels like she should tell someone that something is going on, but she doesn't want to reveal her own bad judgement or to endanger her marriage. The plot thickens, as one might predict. I felt the book could not keep up the suspense to the end. The author also tried to make the personnel lives of the police officers involved part of the plot. I don't think this quite worked. Not great a book but good one with and original plot.
June 1, 2019
Listened to in audio format.
The Point of Rescue is the third book in the Spilling CID series. If you are new to the series, I suggest you start with Little Face to understand the history between Simon Waterhouse and Charlie Zailer.
The plot was unique with twists and turns. I enjoyed reading about the different side of motherhood. The murder victim Geraldine Bretherick was a nasty piece of work, but intriguing. Geraldine was so selfish and unmotherly it was funny.
I was surprised that Simon jokingly proposed to Charlie, I can't wait to see if she accepts.
I have only read three books but I thoroughly recommend this series.
The Point of Rescue is the third book in the Spilling CID series. If you are new to the series, I suggest you start with Little Face to understand the history between Simon Waterhouse and Charlie Zailer.
The plot was unique with twists and turns. I enjoyed reading about the different side of motherhood. The murder victim Geraldine Bretherick was a nasty piece of work, but intriguing. Geraldine was so selfish and unmotherly it was funny.
I was surprised that Simon jokingly proposed to Charlie, I can't wait to see if she accepts.
I have only read three books but I thoroughly recommend this series.
February 9, 2010
I grumbled through every page of this book, but I kept holding on to the idea that the initial premise of the book was intriguing enough to stick it out and see what happens. I've read books by British authors before, but consistently felt lost in Hannah's use of U.K. vernacular. Several times I almost wanted to ask out loud, "This book IS written in English, right?" There was virtually no character development to speak of and it was ridiculously difficult to keep the characters straight because the story became so convoluted. I'm bummed I wasted so much time trying to get through it.
January 18, 2012
I loaned The Wrong Mother from a co-worker and I have just finished. This is definitely a second-rate book and if I had to describe it in one word it would be disappointing. From the summary on the back cover, this should have been a very good read but I just couldn’t get into the characters. The plot line hurdles from character to character making it bewildering and tough to follow and there was a perpetual allusion to something happening the year before but no details of what the incident actually was. Overall way below average for Sophie Hannah.
2 Stars
2 Stars
February 9, 2017
So I wanted this book to be over more than I wanted to know who did it. I hate that but it is how I feel. This book had too many characters. This book had too much descriptive non important fluff.
I wanted to like this author's books hut sadly they are just too boring and take the oil much of my effort to read.
I wanted to like this author's books hut sadly they are just too boring and take the oil much of my effort to read.
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