Name: The Golden Rule
ISBN: 9780349143484

AMANDA. CRAIG

The Golden Rule

Amanda Craig

'If you like your novels wide-ranging, ambitious, socially panoramic, and engaged in the most important issues of the day, Amanda Craig is the writer for you. For more than twenty years now she has been anatomising the state of the British nation with wit and empathy' Jonathan Coe 'She's such a skilful storyteller who vividly dramatises our lives with wit, wisdom and compassion' Bernardine Evaristo When Hannah is invited into the First-Class carriage of the London to Penzance train by Jinni, she walks into a spider's web. Now a poor young single mother, Hannah once escaped Cornwall to go to university. But once she married Jake and had his child, her dreams were crushed into bitter disillusion. Her husband has left her for Eve, rich and childless, and Hannah has been surviving by becoming a cleaner in London. Jinni is equally angry and bitter, and in the course of their journey the two women agree to murder each other's husbands. After all, they are strangers on a train - who could possibly connect them? But when Hannah goes to Jinni's husband's home the next night, she finds Stan, a huge, hairy, ugly drunk who has his own problems - not least the care of a half-ruined house and garden. He claims Jinni is a very different person to the one who has persuaded Hannah to commit a terrible crime. Who is telling the truth - and who is the real victim? The Times - Books for 2020 Sunday Times - Books to look out for in 2020 Observer - Fiction to look out for in 2020, Alex Preston: 'The Golden Rule does what her novels do best, wrapping the reader in a tight, lean narrative, showing the strangeness that lies at the heart of normal-seeming lives' Daily Mail - 2020 Top Pick, Stephanie Cross: 'Craig's The Golden Rule promises to be a typically sharp and hugely satisfying page-turner about two women who decide to murder each other's husbands' i paper - 'If there were any justice, the versatile Craig would be one of our most lauded novelists. Her eighth novel [The Golden Rule] takes inspiration from Alfred Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train to spin a story of deception and deceit' New Statesman - Books for 2020 Financial Times - Books for 2020 'shrewd contemporary satirist Amanda Craig reworks Strangers on a Train' Praise for Amanda Craig 'Terrific, page-turning, slyly funny' India Knight 'As satisfying a novel as I have read in years' Sarah Perry 'Amanda Craig is one of the most brilliant and entertaining novelists now working in Britain' Alison Lurie

Several implausible situations and very predictable twists made this thriller a let down. 

Leah

I appreciate the attempt at drawing attention to the plight of the divorced woman being vilified for requiring spousal and child support. I just think the book didn't find a good balance between Hannah's relationship and the "plot."

There really isn't a great plot. It feels more like we're just being pulled along by Hannah in a retelling of Strangers on a Train combined with a retelling of either Rebecca or Jane Eyre, and then suddenly Jini pops up and we're back into Strangers on a Train.

But where Rebecca and Jane Eyre thrived in creating mysterious atmospheres and morally grey male characters that kept you guessing until the very end. This failed to do that, and instead felt like a long, drawn out predestined ending. And it really beats you over the head with it. It is also so frustrating, because the solutions are so obvious but they're drawn out for "dramatic effect," which just felt cheap.

I also don't think the politics were handled very well. We would have one super long and detailed atmospheric description juxtaposed to a "rich people don't get it, I can't buy meat!" kind of sentiment. It just didn't fit the rest of the narrative style. I think it could have been better woven into the story, at the very least.

The Golden Rule

Reviews

Highlights