"Love and hate. All of nothing."

Strangely, I enjoyed every moment of this book. And I say 'strangely' because to me the plot was fairly idiotic, the main characters (in particular the current and ex wives of the soon-to-be murdered husband) were well developed but unbelievable, and the final resolution, the identification of the killer, was, indeed, the one I had expected for at least half of the book. But still, I loved it.

Andrew Page is murdered, stabbed, at the remotely located gathering of guests attending the golden wedding anniversary party of Loise's parents. Louise had been married to Andrew for fourteen plus years before he had divorced her to marry the elegant Caroline. The two women, understandably, violently disliked each other, played for his attention and frequently felt hurt or resentful over his reactions. Stating a few weeks prior to the fatal day of the party, characters are revealed and the story is told out mostly in alternating first person accounts from the points of view of the two wives, current and ex, with intermittent cuts to police interviews or an alternate third party. By this clever technique, the reader's sympathies are kept in an indecision over who might be responsible for the ultimate denouement, and why.

The Audiobook has several narrators, although the similarity of the female reader's voices rather negated this otherwise clever idea. The introduction of a male voice for the police investigator was a clear marker of the change to present day,,however. All of the performances were good.

As previously stated, I really enjoyed listening to this book despite the near absence of plot and a dependence on the personalities of the protagonists. It was absorbing, engrossing and, at times, repulsive and it commanded my interest throughout - not to determine the perpetrator (I had already, correctly as it happened, settled on that from quite early in the story), but from sheer pleasure at the interpretations each wife presented, and batty though both could be, the emotional joys and hurting of both clearly emerged.
But enough of that: get the book and read it for yourself.

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