The Point of Rescue

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

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Pacey and well written... - Rated
SH gets better and better with each novel she writes. I love the way she can capture a mood so effectively and 'The Point of Rescue' is a pacey, intelligent read.
Bringing back detectives we've met before is an excellent way to progress a theme, and though she introduces a fairly confusing array of policemen/women, on the whole this is done well.
The tale of how a secret can come back and bite you in the backside, this novel will intrigue you to such an extent, you'll be flipping through the pages desperate for each clue to be revealed and fited into the jigsaw.
Loved it...

Great author, brilliant book - Rated
Humilliated in public by a ranting woman and almost hit by a bus, Geraldine returns home to nurse her wounds and discovers that her ex lover's wife and daughter have been murdered. Only the grieving widow on the news cannot be who he says he is...

Perhaps to the detriment of family life this book had me gripped from start to finish. Quite apt as the theme of the novel is the disintegration of families and the psychological pressure of motherhood. This book struck an uncomfortable chord with me at times.

Hannah is one of those rare authors who can entertain with compelling plotlines, develop complex characters and leave us with something to think about. Her writing is first class. 'The Point of Rescue' is at turns funny, heart-breakng and terrifying. It is the latest thriller in a trio including, 'Little Face' and 'Hurting Distance' and I really can't reccommend her books highly enough.

The Point of rescue - Rated
I was disappointed by this book, having enjoyed Ms Hannah's previous two. It seemed to me that all the characters speak with the same somewhat petulant middle-class female voice, men and women, all characters undoubtedly written by the same hand. I found this so distracting that I really did not care who did what, and why.

Brilliant suspense thriller that fires on all cylinders - Rated
What would you do if someone was trying to kill you, but you couldn't go to the police because that would mean revealing a secret that might destroy your family, the very same secret that might be about to get you killed? That is Sally Thorning's predicament in 'The Point of Rescue' - a superb thriller that is flawlessly written, deeply intelligent, pacy, gripping and totally unpredictable. In some ways this is a traditional detective story, for there are police characters working on unravelling the various mysteries and the irresistible sense of a puzzle needing to be solved is paramount, but this is also a hunted-woman thriller, also a very sophisticated pyschological suspense novel, and a book about relationships and a woman's role in society. I read oodles of thrillers, and it's very rare to find any that pay as much attention to depth and layers and psychology (proper characterisation, I suppose I mean)as to the logic-puzzle-style plot. This is not a 'locked-room' mystery, as there's no locked room, but it has that same sense of things which seem impossible but we know they can't be, because they've happened...how will it be resolved? Sophie Hannah pulls several twists out of the bag and the end, and a few moments of blood-curdling horror as the reader becomes aware of the depths of suffering involved. Loved it!