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The Point of Rescue

Sophie Hannah

Sophie Hannah's debut thriller novel, Little Face, immediately marked her out as a particularly penetrating and insightful practitioner of the psychological crime novel, with a skill for getting into the minds of her beleaguered characters, a skill she continued to polish in its successor, Hurting Distance. Her second book was a particular achievement, given that so many second novels fail to live up to the promise of their predecessors. And here is Sophie Hannah's third novel, The Point of Rescue, and it might be argued that it is her most accomplished book yet.
A woman is watching a report on television of the death of a mother and daughter; apparently both had died at the mother's hand. Also on the screen is the surviving member of the family, a widower described as Mark Bretherick. Watching with her husband, the woman, Sally, has to bite back the words that spring to her lips: this man is not Mark Bretherick! How does she know? Because she had enjoyed a brief sexual affair with the real possessor of that name some time before -- an affair (needless to say) she has not revealed to her husband. Sally is forced to hang on to her secret, and she anonymously informs the police that all is not as it appears to be in this case.
It is Sally's plight that so comprehensively engages the reader here, but readers of the earlier books by Sophie Hannah will be pleased to note the reappearance of her reliable copper Simon Waterhouse, who ensures that the sequences involving the investigation are quite as compelling as the those of a woman desperately trying to keep her indiscretion secret (while doing the right thing).
On the evidence of these three books, Sophie Hannah has a long career as a novelist ahead of her (perhaps to run in tandem with her alternative career as a poet). --Barry Forshaw
Little Face

Sophie Hannah
Hurting Distance

Sophie Hannah
Who Will Comfort Toffle?: A Tale of Moomin Valley

Tove Jansson
The Fantastic Book of Everybody's Secrets

Sophie Hannah
Gripless

Sophie Hannah

Belinda is intelligent, lives with her boyfriend and has just begun her dream job as a teacher of creative writing at the exclusive private school, Beasdale. Tony, although gorgeous, has no social skills, has a tendency towards schizophrenic behaviour and has only just scraped a place on the school's Summer Theatre Course. It's an unlikely basis for a stomach-churning love affair, but as Belinda is at pains to point out, when someone has The Glow, you follow them to the ends of the earth. Her determination to make Tony hers knows no bounds and she devises many a hairbrained scheme to make things go her way, including toying with the affections of an even younger pupil. It is unbecoming behaviour for a school teacher but, as it turns out, she's not the only one half crazed with love. Blackmail, murder, anorexic philosophers and closet homosexual lust soon take centre stage, despite the common consensus that the play must go on. As you might have guessed, this is not the most serious of literary endeavours. But it is considerably better than most giggly girly chatterings on the subject of love and other distractions. Belinda's sharp and sassy voice is scathingly entertaining, and if the book occasionally degenerates into farce, it is all the more fun for doing so. --Claire Allfree
Cordial and Corrosive

Sophie Hannah
Pessimism for Beginners

Sophie Hannah
The Point of Rescue

Sophie Hannah

Sophie Hannah's debut thriller novel, Little Face, immediately marked her out as a particularly penetrating and insightful practitioner of the psychological crime novel, with a skill for getting into the minds of her beleaguered characters, a skill she continued to polish in its successor, Hurting Distance. Her second book was a particular achievement, given that so many second novels fail to live up to the promise of their predecessors. And here is Sophie Hannah's third novel, The Point of Rescue, and it might be argued that it is her most accomplished book yet.
A woman is watching a report on television of the death of a mother and daughter; apparently both had died at the mother's hand. Also on the screen is the surviving member of the family, a widower described as Mark Bretherick. Watching with her husband, the woman, Sally, has to bite back the words that spring to her lips: this man is not Mark Bretherick! How does she know? Because she had enjoyed a brief sexual affair with the real possessor of that name some time before -- an affair (needless to say) she has not revealed to her husband. Sally is forced to hang on to her secret, and she anonymously informs the police that all is not as it appears to be in this case.
It is Sally's plight that so comprehensively engages the reader here, but readers of the earlier books by Sophie Hannah will be pleased to note the reappearance of her reliable copper Simon Waterhouse, who ensures that the sequences involving the investigation are quite as compelling as the those of a woman desperately trying to keep her indiscretion secret (while doing the right thing).
On the evidence of these three books, Sophie Hannah has a long career as a novelist ahead of her (perhaps to run in tandem with her alternative career as a poet). --Barry Forshaw
First of the Last Chances

Sophie Hannah
little face

sophie hannah
Hurting Distance

Sophie Hannah
Hotels Like Houses

Sophie Hannah
Little Face

Sophie Hannah
The Ropes: Poems to Hold on to

Sophie Hannah, John Hegley
The Box Room (Pick up a poem)

Sophie Hannah, Helen Stevens
The Other Half Lives

Sophie Hannah
The Hero and the Girl Next Door

Sophie Hannah
Little Face

Sophie Hannah
Selected Poems

Sophie Hannah