Pun Salad

Did I pick up this book at the library because I thought it was about a young female worker in Information Technology? A likely story, but no. Instead, it was on the WSJ list of the best mysteries of 2022. Getting an early start on that reading project.

The main character is Hannah, a young woman who had the unfortunate experience of discovering the body of April, her Oxford suite-mate, "sprawled across the hearth rug in front of the fire." Hannah gives testimony that sends a creepy employee of the college to prison for April's murder.

But this seriously upends Hannah's life, dividing it in twain. The book's chapters are labeled "Before" and "After"; we alternate between discovering what led up to April's murder, and seeing the events a decade later.

In the "Before" sections, Hannah comes into Oxford as a relatively shy and insecure student, continually nonplussed by the "It Girl" April, who's vivacious, gregarious, and clever. But—it turns out—she's also rich, spoiled, manipulative, devious, promiscuous,… Hannah and April acquire a semi-dysfunctional posse of friends and lovers, they deal wiith Oxford's stressful academic rigor, and … gee, you begin to see a lot of possible motives for people wanting to murder April.

In the "After" section, Hannah is married to Will, April's long-ago boyfriend (hm). She's working in a small Edinburgh bookshop, kind of an unexpected outcome, given her once-promising academic career. She is seriously pregnant. And the prison death of that creepy employee—he's always maintained his innocence—brings on guilt feelings. Could Hannah have been mistaken? Hannah sets out (defying Will's firm opposition, hm) to connect with her old friends, and makes important discoveries about the events back in Oxford.

Eventually, there's a pulse pounding finish.

I'm inordinately proud to say I figured out the true villain long before Hannah does. That never happens.

It's well-written, although I could have done without the many, many descriptions of Hannah's inner mental turmoil. But I wonder how this chapter-opening sentence escaped an editor's eye:

In the restaurant, Hannah looks at her phone again, gnawing at a breadstick.