Which book is the longest resident on your bookshelf?
I have books from childhood, in fact one of my favourite reads is Frances Hodgson Burnett’s 1905 classic A Little Princess.
I remember clutching the book on my way home from primary school, absolutely enthralled by the synopsis – more on beloved childhood reads in a separate post.
2014 was a time when World Book Night gifted books to members of the public. Peter James’ The Perfect Murder has been on my To Read list for a while.
It was a Quick Read at just 128 pages, which means I should have read the book sooner, however following a recent bookshelf rejigging session, I picked up the book and couldn’t put it down.
Books are there to be read and enjoyed, but there is no expiration date on reading a book.
OK, back to the book, and the tagline is a highly intriguing ‘Marriage can be murder’.
We meet long-time married couple Victor Smiley and wife Joan who over the years – nearly two decades of marital bliss (?), have grown apart and now want each other gone.
Define gone? Disappeared.
What I loved about the book
What I love about this book is that there are just two main characters, around five major ones if you include peripheral characters who matter. (Books with hundreds of characters make my brain hurt and belong in a blazing bonfire.)
The book goes from Victor to Joan’s point of view, so we get a clear picture of the marriage, not a one-sided complaint.
The book is thought-provoking, as it makes you wonder what makes a murderer? Killing tendencies don’t just rise up overnight, in this book it is a gradual desire that grows with discontent in Victor and Joan.
I wonder, could they have walked away and been happier? I’m not sure they had that option, they were too inward thinking and ultimately tied to one another due to their inability to see life positively without each other.
Both characters are highly unlikeable. They both have affairs, lie and are not very nice people, but that is OK because I still wanted to know about their fate. And that is what I think is really clever writing by Peter James. He makes you care about the narrative, he makes you want to know more about these two reprehensible people who can’t be happy. I really liked the book and the ending had a humorous, deathly twist that made me smile. I felt like the characters got the ending they deserved.
Peter James is not an author I have read before. What I love about discovering a writer that I enjoy, is their body of work ready to be explored. I did not know Grace is the creation of Peter James, a detective series that has been patiently blipping on my radar since I saw the excellent John Simm in a trailer a few years ago.
Lucky for me there are six series’ to dive into, I love a good detective story and Grace has now leap-frogged onto my To Watch List.