The Wrong Mother (Spilling CID, #3)

The Wrong Mother (Spilling CID #3)

3.44 of 5 stars 3.44  ·  rating details  ·  3,238 ratings  ·  608 reviews
A chilling exploration of a mother's unspeakable betrayal from the author of Little Face

Sally Thorning is watching the news with her husband when she hears an unexpected name-Mark Bretherick. It's a name she shouldn't know, but last year Sally treated herself to a secret vacation-away from her hectic family life-and met a man. After their brief affair, the two planned to...more
Paperback, 415 pages
Published September 29th 2009 by Penguin Books
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Community Reviews

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Michelle Will
I started out really enjoying this book. It was suspenseful and thought-provoking for any mother who has caught herself wishing bad things for her children. What is the point of no return and what would it take for you to get there? But, what the heck happened to the end of this book? It was as if someone else wrote it on their coffee break. What happened to Sally? Wasn't she the main character? So, she gets abducted and escapes from an insane psycho and just goes home and goes to bed? And why t...more
Dorsi
Jul 23, 2010 Dorsi rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Anyone who loves a great who the heck dunnit!
Wow, I loved this book. It had so many twists & turns it kept me on the edge of my seat. It had many surprises throughout. This was one complicated story. I know there's probably a lot I missed, so some time in the future, I plan to revisit it. I got a bit confused & lost from time to time as there were quite a few characters & aliases. This piece had to be difficult to write! The only thing that bogged it down at times was Geraldine's diary. I realize it was necessary for the storyl...more
Sarah
The first fifth or so of this book was excellent - strong, unique voices and a perfect, slightly chilling tone to otherwise innocuous words. Then all sorts of little things came together to make the book dissatisfying. The cast of characters seemed too big for the author to handle, certainly too big for me to care about learning to distinguish them. There was one too many twist that seemed to come out of nowhere, while there was a really nicely laid foundation that wasn't used at all. And the bo...more
Erin
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
Ellen
I was intrigued by the book's opening...a woman is shocked to read of the murder of a man she had a brief affair with, except the photo of the victim shows a completely different man. Understandably, she has to try to find out what is going on. But I thought it went downhill quickly. First of all, there wasn't a single character I either liked or identified with. The men are almost all selfish idiots or brutes, the women all narcissistic whiners with infanticidal tendencies (except for the one w...more
Jane
This is the fourth Sophie Hannah novel I have read; I started with the most recently published novel, Kind of Cruel, after hearing her discussing it on the radio. After I started reading it, I became aware that it was clearly the most recent instalment of a series about the Spilling CID team, so I decided to go back to the start and read the novels in order.

The Point of Rescue is the third novel in the series, and (not including Kind of Cruel)it is the first one that I have read where I have be...more
Booknblues
There is something so satisfying about a good mystery thriller. I love the feeling of being on the edge of my seat and the tight grip of the book that I am unable to put down until it reaches its conclusion. The Wrong Mother by Sophie Hannah is just such a book.

After a difficult day career woman and mother, Sally Thorning returns home and catches a glimpse of the news stating that the wife and child of a man she knows, Mark Bretherick were found dead in the bathtub. Sally is shocked and soon fin...more
Whitney
Eh, this book was not as good as I expected. I anticipated much more and was disappointed. This book had too many characters, convoluted scattered chapters with no rhyme or reason with the interchange between narrator voices and honestly, was not really that good. Sophie Hannah could have nailed this book as a good mystery with an interesting plot, but it just felt like a bad lifetime movie. You know the kind with the woman who is completely absorbed in her kids, has an inept but loving husband...more
Alyce (At Home With Books)
Should we judge a book by its cover? I ask because in this case I hated the cover – absolutely loathed it. And you know what? I wasn’t too fond of the book either (although to be fair I didn’t hate it).

What drew me to this story was the bit about how Sally took a secret vacation when her work trip got canceled. I thought that sounded like it could have some interesting potential for disaster, and that the murder mystery might be a good twist to the story as well. This was all before I saw the co...more
Syrdarya
Sally is a happily, although frazzled, married mother of two who also has fulltime work outside the home. One night her husband calls her to see a news story on TV - a distraught husband talking about his dead wife and daughter. To Sally's shock, she knows their names, but the husband is not the Mark Bretherick she knows, and she can't tell anyone how she knows that. Sally tries to help out the police, but at the same time she feels as though someone is trying to kill her.

This was a twisty, fun...more
Kate
Not really my kind of book. I ordered it on my Kindle after having read the author's Hurting Distance, which I sort of enjoyed. Basically, I was looking for something to read. I've read two of Sophie Hannah's books that feature the same detectives and their story seems to be a subplot moving through her novels. I have to say, they are the characters I could do without. Interesting plot twists, though, throughout the larger story. Basically, Sally is an overworked, overwrought mother whose planne...more
Jill Furedy
I'm not a big mystery novel fan, but loved Tana French and Stieg Larsson in the past year or so, and read that Sophie Hannah was another author their fans might enjoy. Overall, I did. It was a little frustrating to be left out of the detective's thought process and not even see some of the clues that help him solve the crime. There were a lot of people and relationships to keep track of, and people using fake names all the time doesn't help. But I still thought the story was interesting, right u...more
Anne Girouard
I picked this book out because it was a recommendation on the Amazon page for my favorite discovery of the year (Still Missing by Chevy Stevens). I'm really glad I did. Unlike The Doctor's Wife, which was also a recommendation on that page, this novel is a taught thriller that held my attention and kept me guessing the whole way through.

Sally Thorning is a wife and mother who, while watching the evening news, discovers the wife and child of a man she had a brief fling with a year earlier have di...more
Kate
Is Sophie Hannah a literary genius? Nah. But hey, all you haters — I invite you to try constructing a plot like this one: twisty, intricate, and relentlessly leave-'em-guessing. I was engrossed, and I admired this thriller all the way through. This story also hangs on some deliciously nerdy hinges: idioms, the way in which a native versus a non-native English speaker writes, and — be still my heart! — the perils of find/replace in MS Word.

The Wrong Mother will push buttons with mommies and the...more
Jennie
Usually, if I skip to the end of a book while I'm still reading it, it's for one of two reasons: either I'm so bored with the stupid thing I've decided to give up on the second half, or I'm so worried about a character that I need to check and see if he/she is still alive at the end, thus allowing me to get through the second half with relatively little anxiety.

This book falls into the latter category. I was so creeped out at one point that I was frozen for a minute, fighting with myself about s...more
April
I found the last 150 pages or so of this book to be the "gripping thiller" advertised on the back cover. I honestly couldn't tell you much about the first 252 pages and even now, having just finished it, find myself struggling to come up with a decent, articulate synopsis.

Overtired, overworked mom of two discovers her work trip has been cancelled but still goes away for the week. Meets guy. They have a week long affair. All is nearly forgotten until she sees a man on the news claiming to be Mark...more
Denise
3.0 out of 5 stars Complex and thought provoking tale of the dark side of motherhood..., December 4, 2009

This review is from: The Wrong Mother: A Novel (Paperback)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
This was interesting and compelling but ultimately an overly long novel about families and murder. The introduction and premise were intriguing -- a woman is watching television when she sees news of a case involving a mother and daughter who are dead, perhaps a murder suicid...more
Marcia
If you like a good suspense novel with an original plot, you would like The Wrong Mother. A young mother, Sally, longing to escape the drudgery of every day life, has a week long affair with a man named Mark Bretherick. She ends up regretting her momentary lapse and is trying to put it from her mind when she hears the name again on the news. A Mark Bretherick's wife killed herself and her young daughter. The wife's name, address, child's name, etc. all match up with what Mark told Sally during t...more
Bridget

Sally had an affair. She was exhausted and in desperate need of a break. When her business trip was unexpectedly cancelled, she decided to get away anyway. She met Mark and their tryst began. They talked about lives they lead, about their work and about their families. When the vacation came to an end, the two parted ways thinking they would never see each other again.

One night while Sally and her husband are watching TV and to Sally's surprise, Mark's name comes up on the news. To her surprise,...more
Dawn
This was my first book by Sophie Hannah. I didn't realize that she was British but she apparently is. This factor didn't prohibit my understanding or enjoyment of the story too much, just the usual confusion over certain titles and such.

The book is a mystery novel about a woman who has an affair with a guy on a week long out-of-town trip. She returns home and resolves to pretend like it never happened and to make sure it doesn't ever again. She has no idea yet how tangled up her life will turn o...more
Molly
The beginning of this book was superbly portrayed the conflicting feelings of a working, professional mother. Sophie Hannah does an excellent job exploring this theme. The story has provokative twists and the characters other than the police characters are interesting. Too bad the cops needed to be involved.
Two issues I had:
1. I felt sorry for the not-so thrilled mother. One detective felt she deserved to die, and I contest, though I ask myself why she bothered having a child.. the answer goes b...more
Penny
This book is a psychological thriller about a regular suburban mother who makes a bad decision, which means the every day stresses and worries about being a parent start to be overcome by a nightmare of shocking proportions. I don't ofen read 'crime' novels, but was intrigued by the fact that 'The Wrong Mother' explored the challenges of being a parent, and I was also reassured by the fact this was a Penguin book! The story was tight, intriguing and compelling, a real page turner, and I will def...more
Katherine Granich
I had read a previous book by this author, Little Face, which I found to be pretty well-written. I liked the premise of Little Face -- a new mum goes to the gym because her mother-in-law and husband thinkshe needs to get out of the house, and when she comes home, she checks on her baby in the crib, but it's not her baby -- and nobody else in the house seems to think anything is amiss. The Wrong Mother was a bit more complex and better written. The protagonist, Sally, is the spitting image of ano...more
Cara St.Hilaire
I think she is a promising thriller writer and I'll certainly read more of her work.

Yes, this novel had some problems which some of the other reviewers have mentioned.
-There was an abundance (maybe over-abundance) of mysteries and disjointed clues.
-The twist was completely a shock out of nowhere (no earlier clues to what might be to come)which may not be a necessarily bad thing.
-There were a few sections I had to read over because it got a bit confusing
-The biggest error to me was a big inc...more
Stevie
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
Ray
I love/hate Tania French. She gave a talk at the Free Library and mentioned this author as a sort of peer. I should have known better.

The premise? A mother and daughter are found dead in adjoining bathrooms. An apparent homicide/suicide. But the widowed husband and father suspects murder. As does the dead woman's doppelganger who had an affair with the man who claimed to be the very same widowed husband and father but who was not.

And that's just the first few pages.

Ridiculous plot twists quickly...more
Jessica
There are some minor things about this book that kind of wreck it--for starters, the names are often similar, and there are a few that are too long, or you are unsure how to pronounce--so your eyes just glaze over them. Because of that, it's hard to follow them through the book, I can't even count the number of times I had to stop, go back, and check things to make sure I was read them correctly.

The dialog is often strange, making it also difficult to follow.

The points of view change without a...more
Caitlin
What an excellent thriller this was! I got it because it had a recommendation from Tana French on the back cover. French is one of my favorite new crime writers who managed to write an amazing first book and an even more amazing second book. I figured if she liked this one, I would, too. And I did!

This is one of those books that both excels past its genre and stays firmly in it. Hannah never breaks the rules of thriller in this book, but she expands the notion of what a writer of thrillers can d...more
Pam
This book was SO good for the first 40 pages. I've come to the conculsion that anyone can write the beginning of a book. But few can write a good book through to a good conclusion. Sophie Hannah's book The Good Mother had all of the right pieces in it - interesting main characters, a twisting plot, a surprise ending - but it was all lost in the endless parade of sub-characters and characters with nicknames. Hannah could not handle the large cast of characters, that much was clearly evident. Her...more
Gina
Sally Thorning is watching the news with her husband when she hears a name she never thought she'd hear again: Mark Bretherick. Last year, a work trip Sally had planned was cancelled at the last minute. Desperate from a break from her busy job and young family, Sally doesn't tell her husband that the the trip was cancelled and treated herself to a secret vacation in a luxorious spa hotel. While she was there, Sally met a man, Mark Bretherick, and they had a weeklong affair that they had agreed t...more
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The Point Of Rescue (Spilling CID, #3)
The Point Of Rescue (Spilling CID, #3)
The Wrong Mother (Spilling CID, #3)
The Point Of Rescue (Spilling CID, #3)
The Point Of Rescue (Spilling CID, #3)

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Sophie Hannah is a bestselling poet and novelist, who regularly performs her work both nationwide and abroad. Her poetry is studied at GCSE, A-level and degree level across the country. She was born in Manchester in 1971 and lives in Low Utley, West Yorkshire.
More about Sophie Hannah...
Little Face (Spilling CID, #1) Hurting Distance (Spilling CID, #2) The Other Half Lives (Spilling CID, #4) A Room Swept White (Spilling CID, #5) Lasting Damage (Spilling CID, #6)

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“I never do enjoy my breaks, long or short...I look forward to them intensely, but as soon as they begin, I can feel them starting to end. I feel the temporariness of my freedom, and find it hard to concentrate on anything other than the sensation of it trickling away.” 27 people liked it
“What they'd got was a fat, balding academic who bandied about the phrase "family annihilation", especially when there were cameras pointed at him, and mentioned the titles of books and articles he'd written to anyone who would listen; who blatantly thought he was the mutt's nuts, as Sellers had so aptly put it.” 1 person liked it
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