Matthias's Reviews > The Telling Error

I'm writing this review in the middle of the night, an hour after having read it's last page. I can't get over how perfect this book was, and I feel I must write this review before being able to find sleep. This makes it possible this review is clouded by some feeling of a thrill, but even if it is, that alone is spectacular and very rare. I rate very few books five stars, and even fewer I would call perfection to boot.

But this book was perfection. And a perfect detective story at that. I've read perfect books before, but never in this genre. There was always something, sometimes a tiny thing, but always a thing that made it not quite perfecT. A lacking motivation, an unbelievable oversight, a too convenient coincidence, a far-fetched process. None of that here. This is the perfect psychological detective story. It's the first time I read one of this kind.

It's been a circle of "WOW" (the gasp of admiration) for me. WOW when I saw the book cover, WOW when I saw the synopsis, WOW when I read the first pages. Asthe story kept going, I saw the meticulousness of this author: eye for details, references to those details now and then, some of them useless for the story but very useful for strenghtening my belief that by the end of the book, the WOW would still be there. And as opposed to almost any other detective story I read, it still was. Where even the greatest like Agatha Christie sometimes have to resort to the strength of their character (like Poirot) to make certain explanations more believable, Sophie Hannah needed no such thing in this book. Explanations came from the people thinknig their thoughts and doing their actions, and all were believable.

The mystery was captivating, its solution even more so in its perfection. The psychological insights of this author are undeniable and a great strength in this book and are a big part of why it works so very very well. I want to recommend this book to everyone.

A small additional anecdote:
I first saw Sophie Hannah's name when I saw she was writing a book with Poirot, my favourite detective. I thought: Who in the hell does she think she is grabbing a character from the great Christie? Now I know. I may be too quick to judge since I only read this one book by her, but looking at the large volume she already wrote, the great quality of this book, I'm thinking she's well on her way to fill her footsteps and even more.

The only thing that's stopping me right now from reading more of her works if a small worry. Somewhere I find it hard to imagine that a work of this quality could be repeated by the same author and I'd hate that disappointment cloud the experience I've had here. A small psychological quirk the author might even appreciate. But I know that one day I'll return to this Culver Valley series and keep the WOW's coming. And one day maybe even read Sophie Hannah's take on my favorite detective, if he hasn't been replaced by Simon Waterhouse by that time.