Unfortunately, Sophie Hannah has not been able to live up to her best work for several years. The Opposite of Murder is not as disappointing as her last 4 books but it’s still a letdown. There is one interesting trick in the book that could make it worthwhile, but everything else is subpar. There is not much of a mystery because it’s glaringly obvious who committed both crimes. But that’s not the worst part.
Sophie Hannah always writes about unlikable, flawed heroines. She used to do it very well, but in this novel, she fell in love with her deeply unlikable main character and subverted the main rules of the mystery genre to accommodate that love. The genre exists around the idea that murder is wrong. Characters don’t get rewarded for cutting a person’s throat in an attempted murder or stabbing somebody to death. Even if the victim is not extremely likable, murder is still wrong. Once you suspend this convention of the genre, the genre dies. If murder is sometimes fine, then why should the readers care how it was investigated?
Writing about flawed characters can be great if you can get the readers to see past the flaws and appreciate the character’s humanity. Hannah used to be great at this, but in this novel, she fails at this task most spectacularly. Jemma, the main character, is a horrible, smug bitch. Again, you can write beautifully about horrible smug bitches, but in order to do that, you need to be aware that the readers might not share your deep admiration for this way of being.
This is a disappointing novel, and that’s all the more sad given how well Hannah used to write. I often reread her old novels because I still admire the sheer mastery she put into them.
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