Published by Simon & Schuster
Publication Date: 27th April 2023
Book Description:
Everyone wanted her life
Someone wanted her dead
It was Hannah who found April’s body ten years ago.
It was Hannah who didn’t question what she saw that day.
Did her testimony put an innocent man in prison?
She needs to know the truth.
Even if it means questioning her own friends.
Even if it means putting her own life at risk.
Because if the killer wasn’t a stranger, it's someone she knows . . .
My Thoughts:
I have to admit, I do love a book with dual timelines which a good author can skilfully blend together in order to complete the final picture. Ruth Ware has done this perfectly with this book, having taken the reader off track spectacularly on more than one occasion.
The setting is Pelham College, Oxford. The reader is presented with a core of main characters, as diverse as you could possibly expect; yes, they're all brilliant academics - they'd need to be in order to have been offered a place, it is Oxford University after all. Hannah has arrived, wide-eyed with imposter syndrome, the shining star of her local college. Her roommate is April Clarke-Cliveden, exactly the type of student many of us would expect to be on campus. Her boyfriend Will de Chastaigne is a regular visitor to their accommodation, but from what Hannah has heard through the bedroom wall, things aren't always 100% rosy between them. Then one night Hannah returns from the first night of April's drama production to find the door to their flat open, and April dead on the floor.
Alongside this account of Hannah's uni days, we have a commentary of where she's at now: working at a bookshop in Edinburgh, married and pregnant; life is settled and she's happy with her lot. Her husband is attentive and doing well in his job. Then Hannah gets a phone call: the man who was jailed for April's murder is dead, which means an appeal against his conviction will no longer be investigated. She should be relieved that the whole experience can now be put to rest - but she feels uneasy. The news has opened up old wounds in her mind and sets her on track asking questions that some people are clearly uncomfortable with.
There are so many directions this book could head off in, and the author entertains us in all of them in Hannah's quest for the truth. I buddy read this one with my daughter and we certainly lined up a good few alternative suspects as we made our way through the pages, working through the possible means and motives for each character.
We loved this great whodunit, the truth was eked out until really quite late in the book although, as with all the good books of this genre, the very subtle clues are there when you apply hindsight. An easy to read style, I found this to be a much better book than the other of this author's work I'd read previously although not quite the full 5 stars - close, but not quite.
About the Author:
Ruth Ware worked as a waitress, a bookseller, a teacher of English as a foreign language, and a press officer before settling down as a full-time writer. She now lives with her family in Sussex, on the south coast of England. She is the #1 New York Times and Globe and Mail (Toronto) bestselling author of In a Dark, Dark Wood; The Woman in Cabin 10; The Lying Game; The Death of Mrs. Westaway; The Turn of the Key; One by One; The It Girl; and Zero Days. Visit her at RuthWare.com or follow her on Twitter @RuthWareWriter
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