The Couple at the Table: A Novel

A little predictable in the end, some surprises but picked up about halfway

CRANKY'S BOOK CLUB REVIEW OF THE COUPLE AT THE TABLE BY SOPHIE HANNAH No spoilers!   This classic 'whodunnit' style crime novel divided us as a group.  Some of us choose this style of novel as an easy bedtime read but for many of us, it wasn't something we'd pick for ourselves.  We were fairly divided on how much we enjoyed it and the extent to which we thought the book succeeded as a novel of this genre.    One of us really enjoyed the book and was able to guess the culprit fairly early on, which none of the rest of us managed to do.  Others had been really enjoying the process of trying to work out the culprit, and several of us agreed that the first person format of the chapters could lend itself towards a 'murder mystery' style event.   Several of us were a little underwhelmed with the quality of the story, although those of us who had read other work by Sophie Hannah felt that this book was her best they'd read up to now.  It was agreed that the story certainly worked as a well-constructed whodunnit and that there were also several cunning and entertaining twists, but we also felt that some attempts at twists fell flat.  The jumping around of dates between chapters was found to be a bit jarring for some readers, as were several character name changes, and we wondered whether these had been necessary for the book to work.  The main flaws were in shallow and unbelievable characterisation, and in an insanely short period of time for the murder to be committed, evidence cleared away and culprit back where they'd been a few mins earlier.    Shortcomings aside, the book held everybody's attention and we all either finished it or were keen to do so.  We gave the book an average score of 6/10.