The Couple at the Table
A Novel
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4.5 • 4 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Honeymooners at a posh resort receive an ominous warning with deadly consequences in the latest gripping, twisty psychological thriller from New York Times bestselling author Sophie Hannah.
Jane and William are enjoying their honeymoon at an exclusive couples-only resort…
…until Jane receives a chilling note warning her to “Beware of the couple at the table nearest to yours.” At dinner that night, five other couples are present, and none of their tables is any nearer or farther away than any of the others. It’s almost as if someone has set the scene in order to make the warning note meaningless—but why would anyone do that?
Jane has no idea.
But someone in this dining room will be dead before breakfast, and all the evidence will suggest that no one there that night could have possibly committed the crime.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
In this twisty tale, a honeymooner is murdered at an exclusive resort—and all the clues, including a mysterious letter, point to the other vacationing couples. Six months later, dogged police detective Simon Waterhouse and his charming partner (and wife), Sergeant Charlie Zailer, still haven’t solved the case. But then a guest with unique knowledge of the victim’s tangled past steps in to sort out the different guests’ motives for murder. Sophie Hannah’s ingenious take on the classic locked-room mystery pulled us in with its quirky cast of characters and all their tangled secrets. By the time Hannah wraps up her devilish mystery, everyone had become a suspect.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In bestseller Hannah's subpar 11th Spilling CID procedural (after 2019's The Next to Die), it's been six months since Jane Brinkwood, only daughter of Lord Brinkwood, was fatally stabbed at her father's Tevendon Estate Resort, a British couples-only venue. Curmudgeonly Det. Constable Simon Waterhouse, who was vacationing there at the time with his long-suffering, more socially adept wife, Sgt. Charlie Zailer, took over the murder investigation. He concluded that the culprit must be among those staying at the resort, but no more than that. Lucy Dean, a fellow guest and the ex-wife of Jane's widowed husband, badgers Waterhouse into vigorously renewing his inquiries. Jane is revealed to have been a thoroughly unpleasant person, who managed to offend and/or threaten everyone within snarling distance. For Waterhouse, who rightly describes Tevendon as "full of psychos," the question becomes not so much who killed Jane as who wouldn't want to. Too many daft theories, tenuous motives, irritating suspects, red herrings, and lies weigh down the plot. What starts as an irresistible puzzle becomes a disjointed, repetitive muddle. Hannah has done better.
