A Game For All the Family - Sophie Hannah

A Game For All the Family by Sophie Hannah

First Paragraph(s):

The people I'm about to meet in my new life, if they're anything like the ones I'm leaving behind, will ask as soon as they can get away with it.  In my fantasy, they don't have faces or names, only voices--raised, but not excessively so; determinedly casual.
     What do you do?
     Does anyone still add 'for a living' to the end of that question?  It sounds stupidly old-fashioned.
     I hope they miss out the 'living' bit, because this has nothing to do with how I plan to fund my smoked-salmon-for-breakfast habit.  I want my faceless new acquaintances to care only about how I spend my time and define myself--what I believe to be the point of me.  That's why I need the question to arrive in its purest form.
     I have the perfect answer: one word long, with plenty of space around it.
     Nothing.

My Thoughts:

A Game For All the Family is the first book I've read by Sophie Hannah.  She's an author that has been on my TBR list for a really long time.  She's also the author that the Agatha Christie family gave permission to continue the Hercule Poirot series (not sure how I feel about that, but I've not read any of the books).  She has a long-running crime series featuring two police detectives.  I ran across this book on my library's website on audio and decided to try it as my first Sophie Hannah book.

And this may have been one of the oddest books I've ever read.  First of all, the narration was good.  There were three narrators - Lucinda Clare, Fiona Hardingham and Gavin Stenhouse.  No issues with that.  Billed as a 'psychological thriller with an unforgettable ending', it was the story of a family who leaves London and moves away when the mother decides to 'do nothing' or rather just not work any longer.  There is a 13-year-old daughter and a husband who is an opera singer.  Told with scenes from the life of this family and also as a story, purportedly written by the daughter for a school assignment, the narrative switches back and forth.  The daughter's story is about a family with three children - all girls - one a murderer.  Meanwhile, in real life, the mother starts receiving threatening calls from a woman who tells her to return to London or else she and her family will regret it.  Oh, and the daughter's best friend at school, a boy named George, has been expelled, but the school head says he doesn't exist.  That's all I'll say about the plot.

It was hard for the reader to know which way was up or down or sideways.  The fictional school assignment had the strangest family - the sort of people who would be in a Miss Perigrine book, without the unique abilities.  The reader can't decide if that story is real or has real elements.  Plus, is there a George?  I decided to just go along for the ride and see how it all played out.  I liked it well enough that I'll definitely read another book by Sophie Hannah.  However, I could see why it got mixed reviews.  Let me know if you've read this one.  I'm curious about other opinions.

Blurb:

You thought you knew who you were. A stranger knows better.

You’ve left the city—and the career that nearly destroyed you—for a fresh start on the coast. But trouble begins when your daughter withdraws, after her new best friend, George, is unfairly expelled from school.

You beg the principal to reconsider, only to be told that George hasn’t been expelled. Because there is, and was, no George.

Who is lying? Who is real? Who is in danger? Who is in control? As you search for answers, the anonymous calls begin—a stranger, who insists that you and she share a traumatic past and a guilty secret. And then the caller threatens your life. . . .

This is Justine’s story. This is Justine’s family. This is Justine’s game. But it could be yours.