The Book:
The Other Side of the Door by Nicci French, 2021
The Characters:
Bonnie Graham, music teacher
Sonia, Neal, Amos, Hayden, Joakim, Guy – band members
Sally, Liza, and Danielle – Bonnie’s friends
The Plot (from NetGalley):
Bonnie Graham stands in the open door of her friend’s apartment. She is alone, except for the dead body lying in a pool of blood on the floor. What happened? What will Bonnie do now? Whom can she turn to? And what role has she played in the murderous events?
Bonnie is a music teacher who has spent a long, hot summer in London rehearsing with a band to play at a friend’s wedding. It was supposed to be fun, but the band members find the complicated knots of their friendships–some old, some new–unraveling as the days themselves unwind. What was meant to be a summer of happiness, love, and music turns deadly as lovers betray one another, passions turn murderous, and friendship itself becomes a crime. Everyone tells lies. But is anyone prepared to tell the truth to uncover a murderer?
When the book starts, you know someone is dead and that Bonnie is hiding the body instead of calling the police, but you don’t know who died or how. Bonnie asks Sonia to help her hide the body, and the reader knows that Bonnie was romantically involved with the dead guy.
The Twist:
Soon we find out that the dead guy is Hayden. Bonnie struggles to hide her involvement from the rest of the band.
We then discover that Bonnie did not kill Hayden; she hid the body because she thought Neal did it to stop Hayden from abusing her. Neal went to Hayden’s apartment, saw the dead body, and cleaned up Bonnie’s things and mailed them back to her because he thought she killed him. They both were protecting each other, but the murderer is still at large.
The Ending:
Neal put together that Sonia had killed Hayden. Sonia admitted that she had gone to Hayden’s to confront him about hitting Bonnie, and to tell him she wouldn’t stand for it. She said the confrontation turned violent, and that in the struggle she hit Hayden with a statue and killed him.
Bonnie recognized that there hadn’t been a struggle at Hayden’s flat, though. Bonnie met with a friend of Hayden’s and determined that he was blackmailing Sonia for stealing money from her old school. Bonnie agreed not to turn Sonia in but told her to leave town.
At the very end, Liza asks Bonnie what happened to her rug in front of the detective.
The Review:
First of all, I’m confused by the release information. NetGalley gave me an eARC of this book with the publication date listed as April 27, 2021, but is this not the same book that was published in 2010? Is it just a reissue with a new cover/publisher? Either way, this was my first time reading it.
When the book starts, you know someone is dead and that Bonnie is hiding the body instead of calling the police. You don’t know who died, how, or what Bonnie had to do with it. Bonnie calls Sonia to help her hide the body. The reader knows that Bonnie was romantically involved with the dead guy.
The book then switches back and forth between “before” and “after” the murder, as the reader waits for the timelines to converge to figure out what happened. I found it dragging a little bit at times. You don’t find out what Bonnie has to do with the murder until nearly 70% of the way through the book. The author spends a lot of time describing Bonnie’s guilt and mental deterioration after hiding the body.
I found Bonnie to be somewhat unlikable, starting with how she dragged Sonia into her mess and got her involved with the murders. She just didn’t seem like a strong enough protagonist to carry the plot.
The ending was a little lackluster, not worth all the pages and pages and pages of buildup.
Many thanks to NetGalley, Nicci French, and William Morrow for providing me with an eARC of this book.
