A Room Swept White [Paperback]

I found this book almost unreadable, and in particular the characters of Ray and Angus Hines to be ridiculous.
The narrative meanders on, with police you would never want to investigate a crime you had suffered from, the murders, or rather the explanation we are supposed to credit, make little sense.
The behaviour of the policeman Proust would, one hopes, not be tolerated by his fellow officers.
The journalist Natrass is another absurd character.
Do not read this book!

The strength of this book, for me, was the subject matter. I love a good pyschological thriller anyway but you'd have to have a heart of stone not to be moved by cot deaths and cases involving the deaths of babies which are at the centre of this book. It's topical, relevant and current. And it made me think and ask myself questions that I had perhaps not asked myself before - A Room Swept White is a very clever book that looks at this whole issue without taking sides.

The story is told in both first person (from the view point of Fliss Benson, a TV producer who is pretty low down the pecking order) and also the third person so the reader is privvy to all the goings on in the case. The book starts with the murder of Helen Yardley who was aquitted a few years ago of killing her two babies and spent 9 years in jail for their murder. She teamed up with a TV producer / Journalist called Laurie Natriss and together they formed JIPAC (Justice for Innocent Parents and Carers) and subsequently set about securing the releases of other women who had also been convicted of killing their own babies or those in their care. The morning after Helen's murder, Fliss Benson is suddenly promoted and asked to carry on making the documentary about the released women, and Laurie Natrass leaves the company. That same morning Fliss received in the post a small white card with 16 numbers on it, which means nothing to her until she finds out that Helen has the same card left on her body by the murderer. What follows is a quest to not only find Helen Yardley's killer before he strikes again but also to get to the truth about whether she did or didn't kill her two boys.

What let this book down for me were most of the characters. I understand that it's a plot driven book rather than character driven (which is why I love thrillers as they're fast paced and you want to know what's going on rather than what a character is wearing) but even so, I didn't actually like most of them. Fliss, the first person protagonist, was made out to be incompetent and ditzy and I could never fathom her reason for witholding some evidence from the police. I had no mental image of her and she felt very one-dimensional, as did some of the other big characters. There was no-one at all in the book whom I actually routed for.

What I did like about the book, however, was the whole issue around the enormity of responsibilty in these cases and just how easily the media can make us believe one thing and then another. All throughout the book I though I believed one thing and then realised that I actually had made a decision on very few facts. Once other facts came to light I was swayed again (in fact several times). Either I am incredibly gulliable or the media is way more powerful than even I imagined. The whole issue around medical witnesses in legal cases was fascinating and certainly an eye-opener (and you may end up thinking differently by the end of the book than you did at the start).

To conclude, I really enjoyed this book. Despite the rather wooden characters and some ill-placed humour (Fliss's comedic inner monologue felt a little uncomfortable to read sometimes as it didn't fit with the overall tone of the book), the actual plot and subject matter was fascinating, surprising and gripping.

When TV producer Fliss Benson receives an anonymous card at work containing sixteen numbers arranged in rows of four, it means absolutely nothing to her and she has no idea what to make of it.

On the same day, Fliss discovers she is going to be working on a documentary about miscarriages of justice involving mothers wrongly accused of murder, when their babies suffered cot-death. The documentary is to focus on three women: Helen Yardley, Sarah Jaggard and Rachel Hines who are all now free, whilst Dr Judith Duffy who was involved in child protection, is under investigation for misconduct after trying her best to ensure all three women would be sent to prison for life.

For reasons only known to herself, this is not a project Fliss wants to be working on, but then Helen Yardley is found dead at her home and in her pocket is a card just like the one Fliss received, with sixteen numbers on it arranged in rows of four...

A couple of years ago I read one of Sophie Hannah's first novels, 'Little Face' and thoroughly enjoyed it. I then equally enjoyed subsequent novels 'Hurting Distance' and 'The Point of Rescue' and thought I had found a new author to enjoy. However, despite looking forward to reading the next novel from Sophie Hannah, entitled 'The Other Half Lives' I found I was left disappointed, as it was very poor compared to the previous novels.
So when 'A Room Swept White' was published last year, I hoped that this book would see a return to form for Sophie Hannah, but unfortunately I found that once again I did not enjoy the book.

Although the blurb on the back of the book sounded interesting and something I would enjoy, I found that right from the first page, 'A Room Swept White' was a very difficult book to get into.

The story is told in both first person from the view point of Fliss Benson and also the third person and right away I found the ditzy character of Fliss Benson, irritating. She also came across as incompetent and I found myself unable to believe in her character and given the serious and upsetting nature of the plot, it just didn't seem to fit. Even her 'secret' was a kept secret for too long in my opinion.
Fliss also is in love with her boss Laurie, but his character refuses to allow himself to be endearing to either her or the reader. I couldn't understand at all why Fliss was interested in him and it didn't make for interesting reading.
In fact, the characters in the book were really a big let down. Even the reappearance of "Snowman" Proust and detective couple Charlie and Simon from Spilling police station who have all featured previously in Hannah's other books could not save this story and their characters were far less interesting than they were previously.
Incidentally, this novel can be read without knowing about these characters in the previous books, as anything the reader needs to know is explained. And that was another let-down for me as I thought there was far too much needless information about Charlie and Simon's relationship and background included in this book, which prevented any suspense or tension building as it moves along at a snails pace.

Several times I put this book down and had to force myself to pick it up again and finish it. It was only the fact that I have enjoyed some of Hannah's previous books so much that I stuck with this one. I kept hoping it would get better, but it didn't.
I also felt that the initial part of the book which intrigued me, in which various people were sent cards with numbers written on them, was not convincing. In addition, various aspects of the plot are simply left in the air. I could never fathom out why for example, the reason Fliss witheld some evidence from the police.
Nothing much seemed to be happening for long periods of the book and I simply couldn't believe in any of the characters, which was tiring and disappointing.
It was a struggle to read this book to the end and it certainly lacks the sharpness and readability of the author's earlier books.