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krobart's review against another edition
4.0
When Fliss Benson takes over an important documentary about women falsely accused of murdering their babies, she receives a mysterious card with numbers on it. Soon she learns one of the mothers was murdered, and had a similar card in her pocket. The neurotic DC Simon Waterhouse tries to figure out a nest of clues.
See my complete review here:
http://whatmeread.wordpress.com/tag/the-cradle-in-the-grave/
See my complete review here:
http://whatmeread.wordpress.com/tag/the-cradle-in-the-grave/
mikewa14's review against another edition
4.0
The weakest in the series so far and following a slightly different approach, but still a good read
http://0651frombrighton.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/a-room-swept-white-sophie-hannah.html
http://0651frombrighton.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/a-room-swept-white-sophie-hannah.html
ridgewaygirl's review against another edition
4.0
Fliss, a producer on the low end of her production company's totem pole receives an odd card featuring a block of numbers. She's working for the brilliant Laurie Nattrass, who is making a documentary about a doctor whose expert testimony about crib deaths may have sent innocent and grieving mothers to prison. At the same time, one of the women who spent time in prison, but who was eventually acquitted and who was working with Nattrass on his documentary, is found murdered in her home, and an identical card is found on her body.
Sophie Hannah writes well-plotted mystery novels that are reminiscent of Ruth Rendell and Minette Walters. The locale and police working the cases remain the same through all of her books, but as they are a secondary focus, it's not necessary to read her books in order. I am, because of the slowly developing relationships between the different detectives are so interesting; in this installment, Waterhouse is no longer working with Zailer and is forced into closer proximity to his supervisor, a man for whom he feels nothing but contempt. Waterhouse is a seething mass of anger and repression and it's always interesting to see if he can hold himself together, let alone solve the crime.
Hannah's books are always fun to read; there are always several twists to the plot and she keeps the reader guessing until the final pages without cheating or pulling her punches. This was a solid offering in a well written and diverting series.
I will add that her books have different titles in Britain and the US, with the US titles being utterly devoid of meaning and therefore hard to keep track of. The author was told that Americans need unambiguous titles that reflect the genre, instead of intriguing titles that reflect the actual book. The British title for this book is A Room Swept White, which makes perfect sense if you've read the book and is a much better title than the mystery-genre-appropriate and forgotten tomorrow, The Cradle in the Grave.
Sophie Hannah writes well-plotted mystery novels that are reminiscent of Ruth Rendell and Minette Walters. The locale and police working the cases remain the same through all of her books, but as they are a secondary focus, it's not necessary to read her books in order. I am, because of the slowly developing relationships between the different detectives are so interesting; in this installment, Waterhouse is no longer working with Zailer and is forced into closer proximity to his supervisor, a man for whom he feels nothing but contempt. Waterhouse is a seething mass of anger and repression and it's always interesting to see if he can hold himself together, let alone solve the crime.
Hannah's books are always fun to read; there are always several twists to the plot and she keeps the reader guessing until the final pages without cheating or pulling her punches. This was a solid offering in a well written and diverting series.
I will add that her books have different titles in Britain and the US, with the US titles being utterly devoid of meaning and therefore hard to keep track of. The author was told that Americans need unambiguous titles that reflect the genre, instead of intriguing titles that reflect the actual book. The British title for this book is A Room Swept White, which makes perfect sense if you've read the book and is a much better title than the mystery-genre-appropriate and forgotten tomorrow, The Cradle in the Grave.
vikingwolf's review against another edition
1.0
I liked the idea of the book more than the actual book itself.Three women have been freed or aquitted of murdering children in their care and the doctor who testified against them is facing misconduct charges.As a documentary about their cases is being filmed,one woman is murdered and everyone connected to the project is in danger.
A good idea that did not work for me as I read the book.Our heroine Fliss is a cardboard cutout female,placed there to fall in love with her boss and interview one of the women,but there seems to be no point to her!Her own 'dark secret' was a good one but I felt the author just threw it into a conversation for no reason and could have explored it a bit more.Simon the policeman was an obnoxious caveman whose obsessive hatred of his boss seemed more important at times in the story than the murder investigation which I found really annoying.It was also a bit obvious to me who the killer was.
overall I was very disappointed by this book.
A good idea that did not work for me as I read the book.Our heroine Fliss is a cardboard cutout female,placed there to fall in love with her boss and interview one of the women,but there seems to be no point to her!Her own 'dark secret' was a good one but I felt the author just threw it into a conversation for no reason and could have explored it a bit more.Simon the policeman was an obnoxious caveman whose obsessive hatred of his boss seemed more important at times in the story than the murder investigation which I found really annoying.It was also a bit obvious to me who the killer was.
overall I was very disappointed by this book.
xvicesx's review against another edition
"How bad can it be? Surely a British born person knows better than to doubt the wisdom of vaccines" I told myself as I ignored the warning bells of all the top reviews on Goodreads.
I must admit, I did this to myself. I should have trusted Goodreads. But the problem is, I've trusted Goodreads before about something that was supposed to be good and ended up being junk. This is something that is junk, and Goodreads is absolutely right about it being junk!
I tried to keep myself through it -- the irrelevant characters, the stories that I couldn't empathise less with, the weird plot line about the star (is he?) detective and his fiancée, the guy's inexplicable obsession with hating his boss. I braved it all, because the writing style was easy enough to go through. Until the "mercury in vaccines" thing and the sympathy for Andrew Wakefield (who I did Google), which stirred in me such a terrible rage that I had to go rant about it to my husband and housemate, in the middle of them doing something else.
How CAN you, in good conscience, even for the sake of an attempt at a plot, consider to offer sympathy for a man who has ultimately stirred outbreaks of MEASLES around the world? Children get pneumonia, lose their hearing, go bloody blind because of measles! They die! HOW. CAN. YOU?! In the guise of a perfectly acceptable plot exercise? Really?
No, just NO. This book doesn't even get the pleasure of going to the charity pile, with all the other stuff that I didn't particularly enjoy. No, this book gets its own reenactment of Fahrenheit 451, because nobody should be exposed to this kind of junk and risk believing it, and ultimately putting other people's lives at risk through it.
P.S. UK law doesn't do "double life sentences", because of totality, which is to say, an appropriate punishment considering all the crimes put together, and the respective sentencing guidelines for each. Double, triple, whatever life sentences are a US thing.
I must admit, I did this to myself. I should have trusted Goodreads. But the problem is, I've trusted Goodreads before about something that was supposed to be good and ended up being junk. This is something that is junk, and Goodreads is absolutely right about it being junk!
I tried to keep myself through it -- the irrelevant characters, the stories that I couldn't empathise less with, the weird plot line about the star (is he?) detective and his fiancée, the guy's inexplicable obsession with hating his boss. I braved it all, because the writing style was easy enough to go through. Until the "mercury in vaccines" thing and the sympathy for Andrew Wakefield (who I did Google), which stirred in me such a terrible rage that I had to go rant about it to my husband and housemate, in the middle of them doing something else.
How CAN you, in good conscience, even for the sake of an attempt at a plot, consider to offer sympathy for a man who has ultimately stirred outbreaks of MEASLES around the world? Children get pneumonia, lose their hearing, go bloody blind because of measles! They die! HOW. CAN. YOU?! In the guise of a perfectly acceptable plot exercise? Really?
No, just NO. This book doesn't even get the pleasure of going to the charity pile, with all the other stuff that I didn't particularly enjoy. No, this book gets its own reenactment of Fahrenheit 451, because nobody should be exposed to this kind of junk and risk believing it, and ultimately putting other people's lives at risk through it.
P.S. UK law doesn't do "double life sentences", because of totality, which is to say, an appropriate punishment considering all the crimes put together, and the respective sentencing guidelines for each. Double, triple, whatever life sentences are a US thing.
littlemascara's review against another edition
3.0
It was entertaining enough, but a step down from the previous. I'm glad that the first-person protagonist wasn't an emo damaged damsel for a change, but Fliss' big secret was pretty lame and there were so many plot threads, I wasn't totally sure what was going on by the end.
andintothetrees's review against another edition
2.0
Disappointing. Full review here, on my book blog.
margaret21's review against another edition
3.0
Quite a thought-provoking book with the emotive topic of cot-deaths behind the narrative. Fliss Benson,assistant to Laurie Natrass, has been asked by him to continue producing the TV programme he has master-minded on this topic when he leaves his job. Three women who were perhaps wrongly convicted of killing their babies have now been freed, and they are the subject of the programme. As Fliss continues to probe, her own tragedy begins to emerge. There are many strands to this story, many characters too. I didn't wholly beleive in any of them, nor were many of them in any way sympathetic. So whilst it was an interesting, even gripping story from time to time (what is the significance of those white cards with 16 numbers on each, distrubted to some of the characters in the book?), I don't feel moved to read any more of Hannah's books