The couple at the table A novel

DC Simon Waterhouse and his wife, DS Charlotte (Charlie) Zailer, are spending a few days at a posh couples-only resort that makes Waterhouse uncomfortable...for good reason, it turns out. The trouble starts when a bride receives a note warning her to "Beware of the couple at the table nearest to yours." But no table is any nearer or farther from any other. A honeymooning guest is then murdered. It's an odd murder which requires an odd mind--Waterhouse's--to figure out. It actually takes six months for him to solve the crime, long after everyone else has given up. Hannah is in good form in this eleventh Waterhouse-Zailer mystery (after The Next To Die, 2019), delivering a complicated narrative carried forward by her hallmark peculiar characters. Hannah is known for intricate plots, and The Couple at the Table certainly qualifies. Some readers may find the puzzle a bit too tangled, but those who relish being confounded will enjoy tearing at their hair.

In bestseller Hannah's subpar 11th Spilling CID procedural (after 2019's The Next to Die), it's been six months since Jane Brinkwood, only daughter of Lord Brinkwood, was fatally stabbed at her father's Tevendon Estate Resort, a British couples-only venue. Curmudgeonly Det. Constable Simon Waterhouse, who was vacationing there at the time with his long-suffering, more socially adept wife, Sgt. Charlie Zailer, took over the murder investigation. He concluded that the culprit must be among those staying at the resort, but no more than that. Lucy Dean, a fellow guest and the ex-wife of Jane's widowed husband, badgers Waterhouse into vigorously renewing his inquiries. Jane is revealed to have been a thoroughly unpleasant person, who managed to offend and/or threaten everyone within snarling distance. For Waterhouse, who rightly describes Tevendon as "full of psychos," the question becomes not so much who killed Jane as who wouldn't want to. Too many daft theories, tenuous motives, irritating suspects, red herrings, and lies weigh down the plot. What starts as an irresistible puzzle becomes a disjointed, repetitive muddle. Hannah has done better. Agent: Peter Straus, Rogers, Coleridge & White (U.K.). (Nov.)