Customer Reviews

Other Half Lives

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Beware...this is the same book as The Other Half Lives. For some reason the UK version is retitled to The Dead Lie Down. It makes no sense why they do this. I enjoy this series and look forward to the next installment. However, the descriptions must be read carefully so as not to order a book alredy read!

What does one look for in a British mystery novel? For me, it's a set of quirky and complex characters that stay with you a long time after you finish reading the book, a plot that offers exciting twists and turns on every page, and a dry sense of humor that enriches one's reading experience. Sophie Hannah's new installment in her Zailer/Waterhouse series has all that and more.

Sophie Hannah's books are not always equal in quality. I loved her The Wrong Mother: A Novel, found Little Face to be OK although not really gripping and was disappointed by the Hurting Distance which in places was graphic to the point of being traumatizing. I almost decided not to go back for more books in the Zailer/Waterhouse series as a result of this uneven quality of the author's writing. I'm very happy that I decided to give her mystery novels one more try and bought The Dead Lie Down.

From the very first pages, this book catches you in its grip and doesn't let you go until you are done. The characters are so weird and their relationships are so curiously dysfunctional that I was often reminded of the mysteries by the matchless Ruth Rendell, the true master of the psychological mystery genre from Britain. There is nothing boring, ordinary, or pedestrian in this novel. As an added bonus to the fascinating mystery and the engrossing relationships between characters, you get a glimpse of the art world in Britain, with its art fairs, quaint galleries, and strange personalities that inhabit this universe.

This was a good book. Well written and enjoyable. As all Sophie Hannah's books, you cannot figure out the ending unless you are a lucky guesser! She does not give enough information to really figure it out, but she is a good writer and her books are an enjoyable diversion. What I cannot figure out is why she re-releases her books with a different title! First it was 'The Point Of Rescue' re-released as 'The Other Mother'. Now 'The Other Half Lives' is being re-released as 'The Dead Lie Down'. Why? And I think Amazon should warn people so they don't accidentally buy the same book more than once.

The newest book by Sophie Hannah concerns itself with obsession and revenge, and consists in large part of enigma piled upon enigma. As one reads the first twenty or thirty pages, one thing seems abundantly clear: Ruth Bussey is one very strange woman. In the opening pages, she and her boss/lover, Aiden, have each decided to share one stunning secret from his/her past with the other, after which no questions will be asked. Ruth's is almost impossible for her to speak about, literally. Their relationship is an odd one, to say the least: although love has been declared, and neither is a virgin, they remain chaste. The one essential, it seems, is that much of what each knows about the other is a lie.

But Ruth's is not the only odd, and chaste, relationship, Sergeant Charlotte "Charlie" Zailer, ex-CID currently working with the Culver Valley Police, and her fiancé DC Simon Waterhouse, both making a return appearance here, being the other. But dysfunctional connections, familial and otherwise, abound in this novel. Charlie's back-story is not gone into in any detail, except that is clear that yet another past relationship nearly ruined her life, and severely damaged her career. Simon's career is here regularly threatened as well.

These characters come together when Ruth seeks out Charlie, to whom she is a stranger, to tell her that Aiden has told her that he has killed a woman, a woman Ruth knows to be quite alive. Beyond that, the salient story lines take a lot of patience on the part of the reader, or it did this one at the least. It takes a couple of hundred pages before any part of the intricate and convoluted plot makes any sense, and another hundred or so before any clarity takes place. There are several twists and turns, and shocking revelations, along the way.

Sophie Hannah does not disappoint. Her books keep the reader on tiptoes from the beginning to the end, and "The Dead Lie Down" is no exception.

Ruth Bussey, who is traumatized by a terrible mistake she made in the past and bore the consequences, lives quietly in a park gatehouse, making her living as a picture framer. She tries to be as inconspicuous as possible, thinking of all her moves very carefully, to the point of obsession, but she is slowly recovering. Only when she falls in love with her boss, Aidan Seed, trouble enters her life again. On their dream date at the Art Festival in London, they exchange secrets and Aidan admits that he murdered a woman long ago. When he tells Ruth the victim's name - Mary Trelease - Ruth realizes that she knows this woman, who isn't dead at all...

The detective team-turned-couple, Simon Waterhouse and Charlie Zailer, known from Hannah's previous novels, again present their unusual approach. Although, as always, they are hindered by personal problems, they are also successful in solving this convoluted mystery. This gripping novel's plot is not simple at all, but it is logical and does not let the reader deconcentrate even for a moment. I have read the book during a long flight and I could not stop. There were scenes that froze the blood in my veins. It was impossible to guess the solution and I kept changing my suspicions about the killer character...

I always like Sophie Hannah's meticulous design - every detail fits perfectly into place. The background (in this case, the world of art and Ruth's love of paintings) serves its purpose and the social setting is realistic. Her characters are never paper dolls, they are very much alive. She is probably one of the young best crime writers. Hopefully she will write much more. It is true that the changes of titles between British and American editions are a nuisance, especially that no translation is involved (Proprietary? No idea why, it is just annoying).

Convoluted is the only word I can think of to describe the plot--just when you think you know what's going on, there's something else brought to light. Still, it was entertaining, and Sophie Hannah is a great writer. I liked many of the characters, although I really thought she was making Ruth out to be far too much of an unstable basket case until I found out what happened to her. I liked Charlie and Simon, but I don't really get their relationship. I thought there were many nice psychological insights, and I love her rather dry sense of humor. I read the last 60 pages glued to the couch, snarling, "Don't talk to me!" to my family until I had read the last page. So, it's definitely entertaining--a good read.

In Sophie Hannah's "The Dead Lie Down," all of the major characters have something to hide and they reveal their secrets reluctantly. Aiden Seed, who frames pictures for a living, has decided that he and the woman he loves, Ruth Bussey, should be open with one another. Ruth hesitantly admits that she did something shameful and was punished excessively for her actions. Aiden is sympathetic, saying, "The worst things stow away in the hold, follow you wherever you go." It is then his turn to confess: "Years ago, I killed someone." "Her name was Mary. Mary Trelease."

When Aiden makes his startling admission, Ruth is appalled. The catch is that the woman Aiden claims to have killed is not dead. Mary Trelease lives at 15 Megson Crescent on the Winstanley Estate, a rough neighborhood whose residents are steeped in squalor and hopelessness. Trelease is a painter who jealously guards her work from prying eyes. Aiden shows no obvious signs of mental illness, so why is he confessing to a murder that he did not commit?

To answer this question, the author goes back and forth in time and shifts point of view frequently. In addition, she teases us with bits of information that, by themselves, mean very little. Eventually, the puzzle pieces come together to form a ghastly whole.

Hannah is a fine descriptive writer with a strong eye for detail. For example, her depiction of a party during which Sergeant Charlotte Zailer and her fiancé, DC Simon Waterhouse, celebrate their engagement at "a dingy room in a pub," along with family and friends, is excruciating, embarrassing, funny, yet also unutterably sad. Simon and Charlie are a wounded pair and people say cruel things about them behind their backs. What should have been a festive occasion turns into a cringe-worthy fiasco.

Hannah's characters are off-beat and intriguing, but her plot is bizarre and convoluted. If an extremely lengthy explanation is needed to clarify the narrative, then something is amiss. "The Dead Lie Down" concludes with so many pages of exposition that a scorecard is needed to keep track of who did what to whom and why. Sophie Hannah's "The Dead Lie Down" is a multi-faceted psychological thriller about guilt, revenge, self-destruction, and redemption. It would have been even more satisfying, however, had the story been less dense and more grounded in reality,

I was blown away by Little Face, and have followed Sophia Hannah since. This is her best book since then. Three things make Hannah stand out a cut above average crime. 1) The plot is ingenious, starts out with one or more impossible conundrums, and then makes everything come together in ways you hadn't thought about. Very satisfying. 2) Lot's of humor. 3) Lot's of small bits of psychological insights here and there, without going overboard or straying from the main point (the plot - being the most important part of any crime novel).
Well done this one! (and to newcomers to Sophie Hannah - well worth reading her books in sequence).

She fascinates me---she's a tough cop but with such a human, vulnerable side. Her relationship with Simon--what is his story? As Charlie once asked, has he ever had sex? Was he once so abused he just can't let anyone close? But he is committed to Charlie...fascinating. I am dying to read the book that centers around those two. As for Proust, I like him a lot; love the way he sarcastically sums things up. There was a great scene in the Hurting Distance when Charlie gives him the sundial and he's trying to persuade her to come back to the force showing his softer side. Charlie's sister Olivia and parents--great characters. Liv is loyal but she sure can be a pain.

I thought this book was amazing-I told everyone who would listen about the murderer confessing to the killing yet the victim is at home living her life, constantly having to prove she's alive. It may be a long one but it definitely goes by quickly--I just couldn't stop reading til the end. I really enjoyed it but wasn't too good for work the next day!

Can't wait for the next book--please have more Charlie and Simon in it!!!

I was brought up on English crime novels featuring super-rational, often aristocratic detectives (a long line stretching from Sherlock Holmes through Peter Wimsey, Adam Dalgliesh, and Thomas Lynley) or else quiet, clever, less dashing types (Poirot, Wexford, the protagonists of most Scandinavian police procedurals). So it isn't always easy for me to accept that these days, the fictional upholders of law and order may often be quite disorderly themselves --- angry, easily hurt, impulsive, neurotic --- especially when it comes to personal relations.

Such is the case with Sergeant Charlotte (Charlie) Zailer and Detective Constable Simon Waterhouse, the police in THE DEAD LIE DOWN. Introduced in Sophie Hannah's three previous mysteries --- LITTLE FACE, HURTING DISTANCE and THE WRONG MOTHER --- Charlie and Simon are bright, insecure, and always pissing off those in authority --- in particular a chief inspector named Proust (who doesn't care for madeleines or memories but who finds ways to punish these most intelligent and rebellious members of his force).

Proust's name is sneakily apropos, since THE DEAD LIE DOWN concerns the remembrance of things past --- pain, humiliation, secrets --- by several characters, including the detectives themselves. As the book begins, we find Simon and Charlie confronted, separately, with the same strange confession: A fine-art framer named Aidan Seed tells Simon he has murdered a woman --- who, however, still seems to be alive. Aidan's coworker and lover, Ruth Bussey, desperate to prove him innocent, relays the same story to Charlie. This case --- which doesn't even seem to be a case, or at least not yet --- will prove a test for even the dynamic duo's persistence and intellect.

Meanwhile, Charlie and Simon have become engaged (she wears a ring with "the world's smallest diamond," as she puts it to Simon in one of her typical loose-cannon moments), even though they have neither sworn their love nor had sex (actually, it's not clear that Simon has ever had sex). Still, it's clear they are two of a kind: haunted, obsessive, never toeing the line. "Most people were idiots, even those whose rank and years of experience might suggest otherwise" is a typical Simon observation --- no wonder he's referred to by coworkers as "an arrogant turd." As for Charlie, she becomes unhinged at the slightest reminder of the events of two years ago --- her unwitting romantic involvement with a psychopath --- that resulted in a demotion from Detective Sergeant to "just plain sergeant."

Ruth and Aidan's togetherness is similarly uneasy. Ruth, too, has violence in her past, and the couple's mutual guilt and fear of rejection simultaneously binds them and drives them apart. And then there is the supposed victim, a gifted painter named Mary Trelease who refuses to sell or exhibit her canvases and who chooses to live in a slum even though her educated accent clearly points to a privileged background. Mary can be terrifyingly angry, weirdly seductive, maddeningly elusive. She seems to be the key to the conundrum of the crime-that-didn't-happen. But how and why?

Charlie and Simon figure it out, but only by getting embroiled in a rather surreal, through-the-looking-glass world. In THE DEAD LIE DOWN, secrets lead to still more secrets, like a set of nested Russian dolls. Identities shift. The dead don't stay dead. Nothing and no one is as it seems.

This play of appearances is underlined by the art-world background against which the story unfolds (for what is art but a representation, more or less distorted, of reality, even if that reality exists only in the painter's mind?). Hannah takes a rather cynical view of the whole scene, but at the same time catches the passion of the committed painter (Mary) and genuine enthusiast and collector (Ruth). In an obvious reference to trendy artists like Damien Hirst, a gallery owner tells Ruth, "You and I are the taste-makers of the future....Once all the pickled baby skeletons and diamond-studded skulls and unmade beds have been seen for the shams they are, you and I will be there to lead the way. True art will once again reign supreme."

My main caveat is that the book is so densely plotted that it is rather opaque at first. It took a while to get my bearings. I was at a disadvantage, this being my first Hannah novel, so the entire cast of characters was unfamiliar. (I've just begun LITTLE FACE, her first thriller --- brilliant ---- and it gives a much fuller sense of who Charlie and Simon are and how their relationship has evolved; Charlie, for example, was Simon's boss before her demotion and had a major unrequited crush on him.) Still, I appreciate the sophistication of the concept, the complete absence of by-the-numbers plotting, the sharp dialogue, and especially the prickly wit and vulnerability of the two coppers, who grew on me more and more as the novel progressed.

A lot of loose ends are tied up as THE DEAD LIE DOWN concludes, but Charlie and Simon's relationship remains oddly ambiguous. Clearly, Sophie Hanna can be relied on to avoid anything obvious or predictable --- a precious quality in a mystery writer. In any writer.