The Couple At The Table
What starts as an idyllic honeymoon for Jane and William at an exclusive resort quickly unravels after Jane receives an anonymous, chilling note: Beware of the couple at the table nearest to yours. The threat loses all clarity at dinner, however, when they realize the five other couples are seated at tables exactly the same distance away. This cryptic, seemingly orchestrated setup leaves Jane completely in the dark. She won't have long to wonder, though. By breakfast, one of the diners will be dead, and the resulting investigation will point to a murder that no one in the room could have possibly committed.
- Lucy - Pete’s fiancée
- Pete Shabani - Lucy’s fiancé
- Evin - Lucy’s daughter
- Jane - William’s wife, Ian’s daughter
- Ian - Owner of Tevendon Estate Resort, Jane’s father
- Anita - Deputy manager of Tevedon Estate Resort
- William Gleave - Jane’s husband, Lucy’s ex-husband
- Simon Waterhouse - Detective constable, Charlie’s husband
- Charlie Zailer - Sergeant, Simon’s wife
- Mick and Susan - Guests at Tevendon Estate Resort
- Polly and Jack - Guests at Tevendon Estate Resort
- Caroline and Harriet - Guests at Tevendon Estate Resort
- Hester and Chris - Guests at Tevendon Estate Resort
- Chris Gibbs - Detective Constable, works with Simon
- Olivia - Charlie’s sister
- 2019: Jane gets two beware notes while staying at Tevendon Estate Resort.
- 2019: A few buildings at Tevendon Estate Resort are going to be torn down to build a new hotel that Anita will be in charge of.
- Jane makes a scene at dinner, accusing Lucy of sending the anonymous notes and of drinking her special bottle of champagne with Pete.
- Jane storms off, and when Charlie and Simon go to check on her after dinner, they find her dead in her house.
- 2019: Jane was Lucy’s doula when she was pregnant with Evin.
- 2020: Hester and Chris gave false names and a false address to Tevendon Estate Resort.
- Hester and Chris are really Olivia and Gibbs; they gave false names because they are both married to other people.
- Olivia and Gibbs left the resort early because Olivia heard Mick talking to Anita about finding bones and thinking they were human.
- Simon finds a hole in the wall behind the mirror in Anita’s office.
- Mick and Anita admit they found the bones in the wall behind the mirror, not in the woods, and then moved them to the woods.
- William is the one who wrote the notes to Jane and rearranged the tables.
- He did it because he wanted to leave Tevendon Estate Resort after having a dream that made him think he and Jane were in danger.
- Lucy got three of the other couples to pretend to be couples there under aliases who Jane had wronged in her life to mess with her, and then they told Jane their 'real names' and that there would always be someone waiting in disguise to ruin her life.
- After Jane stormed out of dinner, everyone but Anita retreated to a room near the dining area to discuss how to keep their story straight about the trick they were playing on her.
- Anita was the one who hid the bones in the wall in her office because she didn’t want the building to be destroyed for the new hotel and she knew that finding bones would halt demolition.
- Once Mick found the bones, Anita needed a new plan, so she killed Jane because she knew that would cause Ian to shut down the resort and cancel the hotel project.
- Anita is facing charges for Jane's murder.
This story jumps back and forth between the present and six months prior, and is told from many different characters' perspectives. Unfortunately, in this instance, it led to a lot of the same thoughts and facts being repeated over and over again from different angles. Between the repetition and the long chapters, the story really drags.
In a book like this with so many characters, you assume everyone has a motive for murder, but the author waits until well after halfway through the book to reveal most of the characters' motives, which felt ill-placed.
I was hoping that the end of the book would be its saving grace, but the reveal was dragged out over several chapters so instead of being sharp and witty it felt like a page filler. By the time I finally got to the bottom of the mystery, I was just ready for the book to be over.
- Jane - Dead - Stabbed by Anita
- Anita - Alive - Being charged with Jane’s murder
- Lucy - Alive - Preparing to marry Pete in the fall
- Murder
- Blackmail
- Miscarriage
- Infidelity
- Pregnancy
- Gaslighting
Publisher: William Morrow
ISBN: 9780063257702
Publication Date: November 2, 2022
Note: Details are for the original edition. Other formats, editions, and audiobook versions may be available.
