Anyone read Sophie Hannah's No One Would Do What the Lamberts Have Done?

[DesiccatedCoconut]

I just finished Sophie Hannah's No One Would Do What the Lamberts Have Done and I feel like I need someone to explain it to me like I'm four years old. Anyone read it and want to engage in a spoiler-laden discussion?

I read all of Sophie Hannah's crime fiction books, except the Poirot ones so far. I look forward to them and save them up, accepting that there's always a bit of quirkiness and suspension of disbelief but enjoying them nonetheless. This one did not live up to expectations and I really don't think I understood it.

Anyone else?

Snap! I'm baffled and disappointed. Plus you have to be a massive dog lover not to find Sally's conversations with Champ utterly cringey, particularly the Day Song and Night Song.

Oh god, is there a new one? I really enjoyed a lot of her earlier stuff and now get sucked in every time and they’re increasingly bizarre and make no sense. Does this one have the tangled backstories of the detectives that you’re somehow supposed to be interested enough in to remember from book to book? I never know which one is which.

Love Sophie Hannah but can not get into the poriot novels

I genuinely feel completely baffled. I think she was definitely trying to get some point across, and there was a lot of political talk. I don't understand what I've just read, though! Normally, her books contain weird stuff that is then explained. This one, I feel like nothing made any sense. It was like a big mess, to be honest. I'm glad it isn't just me!

I know. A lot of the motives for the murders/crimes in her other books are a bit unusal, but by the end of the book, I know how someone was murdered, who did it and why they did it. At the end of this book, I still have no idea (unless it really was the dead dog)!

Yep - this one seemed to consist of multiple threads that went nowhere. I subscribe to her email newsletter and she's currently running a competition. To enter, you have to answer the question "Q: Who, in the novel, is Connor Chantree?". She goes on to say,
"Please note: you might start reading the novel and very soon conclude that this question is a very easy one to answer. It is most decidedly not…so please don’t answer too hastily. (That’s a bit of a clue, though not a spoiler.)"

I really hope she announces the answer, because I cannot for the life of me understand what this means, having read the book!

I will, I know, still read Sophie Hannah's crime novels, but this one really did not hit the mark for me.

Yes, it's a new one. This is a standalone one, so not with the same detectives/police officers. I get really hooked on the seemingly impossible scenarios that each book begins with and really look forward to these. This one, however, I would not recommend. I've seen interviews with her where she's claiming that this is the best thing she's ever written, a career-defining book, etc. I'm so confused! I wanted so badly to enjoy it.

I saw a review somewhere that said she always seems to be working out gripes and arguments from her real life through the characters in her books, and this one definitely felt like that. So weird. I'm sure there's a deep meaning behind it, or some ingenious solution, but it's gone way over my head, if so!

Are you me??

I finished this yesterday and feel the same as you OP. It’s such a baffling story I feel like there must be a deeper point to it but if there is it’s gone completely over my head. I am going to see Sophie Hannah talking about this book tonight so I will let you know after that if I’m any the wiser!

Ooh, please do report back! This book has intrigued me in a completely non-intentional way - as a sort of "Emperor's New Clothes" scenario, as I've seen some glowing reviews and wondered what I've missed!

Enjoy the talk :-)

Re: Connor Chantree, he's the police officer who pulls Sally over for looking at her phone in traffic. That's revealed in Part Two.

If you hadn't reached that bit, you'd say he's the police officer who told Sally that Tess had reported Champ for biting her, but in Part Two it's revealed that was actually a different officer. I'm assuming that's what SH is referring to.

Yes, I got that. I got the impression from the tone of the question for the competition that maybe there was something else going on here. Because of the debate between Large and his wife about whether Chantree had written the narrative. I wondered whether there was some kind of weird wordplay and the “-ree” part of his name was hinting that the writer/narrator was the daughter Ree (Rhiannon). I honestly don’t know! Possibly overthinking it 😁I also found myself saying it out loud and thinking “cognoscenti”…? Definitely need to get out more…

I got the impression from the tone of the question for the competition that maybe there was something else going on here.

One of my biggest issues with Sophie Hannah is that she is a chronic over-explainer, and will never use one word where 17 will do! I think that's what she's done with the competition question.

I've just finished the book- I'm not sure if we're meant to agree with Meredith that the book was written by Corinne and that she paid Saul Hollingwood to kill the Gaveys.

God knows what the bellini-peach-coincidence nonsense at the end was all about. Maybe SH working out some of her gripes with the publishing industry? And the last minute 'revelation' about Alastair Gavey.

Maybe we are meant to believe that the dead dog was the mastermind behind it all...

Reporting back from last night’s event with Sophie!

Not sure I’m much wiser about it all to be honest. It was tricky because the vast majority of the audience hadn’t read the book, so I couldn’t ask questions like ‘so who wrote the book within the book?’ or ‘did the dead dog do it?’ because I didn’t want to spoil it for
people. Some things she did say:

• initially the book wasn’t going to have a murder in it. She just liked the idea of people being on the run where they know nobody’s going to be coming after them (because the police aren’t going to waste resources chasing a dog) but they can’t go home because then the dog will be in trouble.
• Sally Lambert is very much based on Sophie herself (except for the potential murder involvement!). Sophie sings the songs in the book to her own dog Chunk.
• Sophie admitted that the book is largely people behaving in very strange ways, but in her experience some people do behave very strangely!
• There’s a bit in the book where the pub landlord reports a bizarre conversation between Lesley and Tess, bitching at each other in a very matter of fact way. This is based on a real conversation Sophie overheard while on holiday somewhere.
• She said the book is a bit of a social satire and it’s a bit of a homage to JK Rowling’s The Casual Vacancy which also looks at the strange behaviour of people in small communities.

I think knowing it definitely is meant to be a bit of satire makes a bit more sense to me as I don’t have to just take it at face value any more. I do think it might be easier to understand if you’re a dog lover yourself though - I’m not so the way Sally behaved about the dogs just didn’t make sense to me but maybe it would to someone who really loves their own dogs.

I still don’t really get whether there really was a murder though and who did it, or who really did write the book. And I’m still not really sure about all the dead dog stuff.

It was a very interesting talk though! She talked about being asked to do the Poirot books and there was a bit of discussion about the book club argument (whether Mary Westmacott books count as Agatha Christie books). There’s a new Poirot book coming out in October if anyone here likes those.

@ChessieFL, thank you for your report! I've seen her talking before (about 10 years ago), and two things she mentioned then which seem relevant to this book are:

1. She's fascinated by motives for murders which seems absolutely bizarre to most people but which make total sense to the murderer themselves (she specifically mentioned the motive for the murder in After the Funeral by Agatha Christie); and,

2. If she leaves something ambiguous, it's very much done on purpose and she won't be drawn into coming down on one side or the other. The example she gave was of one of her early books in which a woman is suspected of murdering her baby, although she claims the baby died of SIDS. Apparently, Sophie Hannah had a lot of letters and emails (this was pre-Twitter) from readers asking whether or not the character had murdered the baby. She said she would only reply that that was for the reader to decide.

Also, obsessive devotion to dogs has been a major plot point in a couple of her books, so it doesn't surprise me that she's dog-lover!

I do think she's a very unique writer, so although I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with her writing, I have read every single one of her books and will continue to do so.

I came here to say that I’m also missing something from the ending and I really want to work out what the final twist means / work out where the twist is / what the twist is. Hopefully we can use our collective brainpower. Clearly there’s something going on here with pseudonyms - the reference to Mary Westmacott confirms that. There’s also loads of references to careful readers having a special treat at the end of the book if they’re able to read between the lines. So there’s definitely something which happens in the very final few paragraphs which turns everything on its head and once we get that, I think we’ll understand the rest. That’s my hope anyway. Both Gillian McAllister and Alex Michaelides say something about the very final line being key. Joanna Cannon’s also said online “[…] a tense, page-turner of a book with so many clever avenues, plus the most enormous plot twist (Agatha would be in awe). […] I have loved Sophie's writing since I read Little Face many (many) years ago because she is the absolute queen of plot and pace. This will keep you guessing until the end, but you will feel so flippin' smug when you get to the last page and finally work it out (I finished it hours ago and I'm still smiling at myself).” There is clearly something Joanna has worked out that we haven’t! I worked out that Ree wasn’t the narrator fairly early on and guessed that the dog might be narrating but can’t work out the final twist. Whether any of this allows us to work out the clue for the prize I don’t know, but we’ve got until the 10/7/25. I think the key clues are: that a) “Furbert” leaves a peach whenever he’s trying to leave a message for someone, b) Furbert is a pseudonym for the real author, c) Sarah Sergeant doesn’t exist, d) Bill Wendt’s referred to as “large” rather than his rank but he isn’t even large, e) the poem about never being employed by anyone was written by “HS”, f) all of the little fragments of conversations and newspaper articles and poems must all mean something!!

the poem about never being employed by anyone was written by “HS”
I wonder if that's a bit of an in-joke Sophie Hannah's having with herself? HS is her initials backwards, and she is an author and therefore can't be fired.

Clearly there’s something going on here with pseudonyms - the reference to Mary Westmacott confirms that.
That is possible, but I think the main reason that Mary Westmacott is in the book is because Sophie Hannah has a bee in her bonnet about The Rose and the Yew Tree being a murder mystery, the fact of which is only revealed in the final line (she said it in an interview years ago). So she wanted to make a song and dance about it so we'd realise that she also had a clever, subtle reveal in the final line of this book (so subtle none of us can work out what it is!).

I came here to say that I’m also missing something from the ending and I really want to work out what the final twist means / work out where the twist is / what the twist is.
I do wonder if the twist that people are referring to is that, for most of the book, you think you are reading a book within a book. But when part two appears right at the end, you realise you've been reading a book within a book within a book. But that's not revealed in the final line, so I'm not sure why people keep banging on about that!

"Maybe we should publish the book after all," she says. "Shall we give ourselves a bit longer to think about it before saying no?"
Is the 'twist' just the realisation that Meredith and Josh must have decided to publish the book, because it's the book you've just read? If so, that's really underwhelming.

Some more thoughts: HS is Sophie Hannah's initials backwards, but Saul Hollingwood also shares the same initials. I'm wondering if the final "sting" in the tail is something to do with the peach drink sort of manipulating Meredith. Re-reading the final two pages its weird how her mind is suddenly changed by the peach. She finds herself drinking it even though she doesn't mean to. The peach is clearly the symbol for the intervention of the "real narrator", i.e. not the ghost dog but the person pretending to be the ghost dog (I cannot believe I'm typing this sentence!). The narrator even manipulates Meredith into publishing a book she didn't want to publish because she didn't want to publish the words of the murderer but the peach somehow persuades her to. I think the Level 1, 2 etc. thing must mean something other than ghost/heaven etc. I still can't work out what on earth the fish dream is about! Sorry, but this is sending me bonkers. I agree that The Rose and the Yew Tree clues are all basically saying "look out in the final chapter there is a hidden meaning/mystery and if you're lucky you'll work it out." I would love for Joanna Cannon to explain what she worked out in the final chapter!

Sophie Hannah has a bee in her bonnet about The Rose and the Yew Tree being a murder mystery, the fact of which is only revealed in the final line (she said it in an interview years ago)

She was talking about that again last night! I confess I have now bought that book to see if I can work out what she’s on about…

I'm wondering if the final "sting" in the tail is something to do with the peach drink sort of manipulating Meredith. Re-reading the final two pages its weird how her mind is suddenly changed by the peach.

Oh my god YES, I think you're onto something there! Although that does suggest that we really are meant to believe that the dead dog is the mastermind behind it all. Bloody hell.

Although that does suggest that we really are meant to believe that the dead dog is the mastermind behind it all.

That’s the one thing I just don’t think she’d do as the dead dog narration is revealed in chapter 24, way before the end. I think it means that the manuscript itself is in charge?! But then it must be a rational explanation of Agatha would be proud of the twist. I’m going to go back and read 23, 24, 29, 34 and the final 2 chapters as I think that’s where the clues are but who knows.

I keep thinking that the following lines must be significant:
“Never work for someone who can fire you.” - is that a word play on fire, e.g. set you on fire?

“The Absurdity Impediment is what's at play whenever we fail to notice a situation's moral significance on account of there being a strong element of absurdity involved.” - were missing the final twist because it’s absurd.

“Corinne Sullivan cannot bear mystery books in which the solution is handed to the reader on a platter, having not got where she is today by relying on others to problem-solve for her.” - we’re supposed to be putting all of this together 😂

“Names are important to the Lamberts”

”There are causes, and then there are clinchers, and the memory of Lesley's fake concern - 'It's not fair to give a dog a joke name like that, Sally. It's disrespectful, actually' - fell decisively into the clincher category. The stark fact is that, if those two sentences had never been uttered, a young man named Saul Hollingwood would have gone to work as usual on
29 June 2024 instead of doing what he did after calling in sick. (He sounds as if he matters to our story, doesn't he?
Yet this is the first and last time his name will appear in these pages.)”

For all of that, I STILL can’t work it out but the closest I’ve got to is that somehow the book itself or the narrator is manipulating people into being dead from a fish allergy without eating fish, not investigating the murders, and publishing the book, somehow with the involvement of peaches.

What else happened on 29th June 2024, other than Saul Hollingwood calling in sick? I listened to the audiobook, so I don't have a physical copy I can flick through to find the date.

It makes it sound like it was Lesley's fake concern that made Sally decide she wanted her dead, and arranged for Saul Hollingwood to commit the murder.

Tess's death. Quote from Chapter 32:
"Needless to say, the name of Furbert Herbert Lambert was not mentioned by anybody in connection with Tess's death.
Here are some of the facts about how her life ended: it happened on 29 June 2024 at 1.10am, not even two weeks after the day of the bite. The coroner recorded an open verdict and said there was no doubt that shed died of natural causes, but that it was nevertheless a peculiar death that raised questions to which we would probably never know the answers.
I knew the truth, but to the rest of the world, Tess's death made no sense. There was a fire, but the flames didn't reach her room before emergency services arrived.
Nor did she die of smoke inhalation. She was, in fact, already dead before the blaze started and was in the process of being admitted to Level 4 as the fire engine pulled up outside The Stables.
Very soon after Tess died, Lesley and Alastair Gavey left Swaffham Tilney."

But if Saul called in sick on 29th June, that would have been after Tess Gavey was already dead and the fire had already been started, wouldn't it? Because they happened in the very early hours. So what did he do after he called in sick?

I wonder if Sophie Hannah thought about any of this as much as we are?!

Very good point!! I think that there's one big simple explanation and everything else will click into place once we get there...