The Point of Rescue

This was the other book I bought at the airport on my way to France last week. I've read the other two in this series (Little Face and Hurting Distance) and was longing to get my hands on this one. It did not disappoint! Sophie Hannah has the most amazing way of inventing a starting point that draws you in immediately. This one begins with a young woman, Sally Thorning, seeing a TV news report of the violent deaths of a young woman, Geraldine Bretherick, and of her small daughter, who happen to live in the same village. When the devastated bereaved husband appears on the screen, Sally is deeply shocked. Some months earlier, she had spent an illicit week in a hotel with a man who told her his name was Mark Bretherick, and who described his wife Geraldine, their daughter, and their house to her. But this man, who is clearly the widower, is not the same person. Sally loves her husband and their two small children, and so cannot share this extraordinary knowledge with anyone in case it destroys her marriage. But a number of frightening events make it clear that she herself is under threat. The case is investigated by the two detectives who readers of Sophie Hannah's earlier books will remember well -- DC Simon Waterhouse, intelligent, perceptive, but emotionally and sexually confused, and Charlie Zailer, a clever, attractive woman who adores him but is unhappy and ashamed of certain developments in their past relationship. Of course the case gets solved, and of course lots of interesting developments take place between Simon and Charlie. The denouement is certainly ingenious, but you will have to read the novel to find out what it is, obviously. Great stuff.