Sophie Hannah
Author of The Monogram Murders
About the Author
Sophie Hannah was born in 1971 in Manchester, England. She is a bestselling, award-winning poet. Hannah went to the University of Manchester and published her first book of poems, The Hero and the Girl Next Door, at the age of 24. In 2004 she won first prize in the Daphne Du Maurier Festival Short show more Story Competition for her psychological suspense story, The Octopus Nest. Hannah was recently chosen by Agatha Christie's estate to resurrect her beloved detective, Hercule Poirot. Her subsequent novel, The Monogram Murders, was published in 2014. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Series
Works by Sophie Hannah
How to Hold a Grudge: From Resentment to Contentment, the Power of Grudges to Transform Your Life (2019) 86 copies, 6 reviews
The Opposite of Murder: the gripping new thriller from the million-copy international bestseller and Queen of the unguessable mystery (2024) 14 copies
The Double Best Method: Become a Decision-Making Genius and Say Goodbye Forever to Bad Choices and Regrets (2024) 2 copies
Work Experience 1 copy
Perfect Little Children 1 copy
Drie verhalen 1 copy
The Dwelling 1 copy
Bully the Blue Bear 1 copy
Az utolsó halál az évben 1 copy
Associated Works
The Book About Moomin, Mymble and Little My (1952) — Translator, some editions — 489 copies, 7 reviews
Who Will Comfort Toffle? A Tale of Moomin Valley (1960) — Translator, some editions — 416 copies, 8 reviews
A Spot of Folly: Ten and a Quarter New Tales of Murder and Mayhem (2017) — Introduction, some editions — 71 copies, 3 reviews
The Double Clue and Other Hercule Poirot Stories (2016) — Introduction, some editions — 61 copies, 1 review
Afraid of the Christmas Lights: An Anthology of Crime Stories (2020) — Contributor — 17 copies, 1 review
Birds, Strangers and Psychos: New stories inspired by Alfred Hitchcock (2025) — Contributor — 14 copies, 1 review
Skald: The Short Story Collection: 6 Original Crime & Thriller Short Stories (2018) — Contributor — 8 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Legal name
- Hannah, Sophie
- Birthdate
- 1971
- Gender
- female
- Education
- Beaver Road Primary School, Didsbury, England, UK
University of Manchester - Occupations
- poet
novelist - Agent
- Peter Straus (Rogers, Coleridge and White)
- Relationships
- Geras, Norman (father)
Geras, Adéle (mother) - Short biography
- Sophie Hannah is a best-selling, award-winning poet. Her latest collection, First of the Last Chances, was chosen for the Poetry Book Society's Next Generation promotion in June 2004. She regularly performs her poetry to live audiences nationwide and abroad, and recently won first prize in the Daphne Du Maurier Festival Short Story Competition for her psychological suspense story The Octopus Nest. Little Face is her first psychological crime novel. Sophie lives in West Yorkshire with her husband and two children.
From Fantastic Fiction - Nationality
- England
UK - Birthplace
- Manchester, Lancashire, England, UK
- Places of residence
- Manchester, England, UK
West Yorkshire, England, UK
Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England, UK - Map Location
- England, UK
Members
Reviews
I can hardly credit I actually finished this, I guess it was mainly because I wanted to refuse to believe anybody (author, editor, publishing house, the whole team of, presumably, professionals who should know better than, and get paid not to, inflict such pure silliness on their audience) could have the brass neck to present their readers with that kind of non-solution to this non-mystery without suspense, plot twist nor, ultimately, sense.
I can suspend disbelief with the best of them, show more however, a solid basis to get me started (relatable characters carrying out marginally believable actions, a dignus vindice nodus - problem worth solving), is that really too much to ask? It's not even that the writing was terrible, it was OK, even funny in places, it seems more that the author could not be arsed to make the effort to render a half-decent story. What a waste! show less
I can suspend disbelief with the best of them, show more however, a solid basis to get me started (relatable characters carrying out marginally believable actions, a dignus vindice nodus - problem worth solving), is that really too much to ask? It's not even that the writing was terrible, it was OK, even funny in places, it seems more that the author could not be arsed to make the effort to render a half-decent story. What a waste! show less
Hallelujah, DC Simon Waterhouse and Sgt Charlie Zailer ARE BACK! Being the investigators in eleven previous mysteries, brilliant Brit author Sophie Hannah has brought them along from working together in the Culver Valley Police Department through dating and to marriage, despite Simon's "issues" with all other human life forms. This time, they are at a local resort where a murder takes place in true Agatha Christie style: within a small group of vacationers, when no one appears to be missing show more when Jane Brinkwood, doula and husband-stealer, is killed during her honeymoon. Although Simon and Charlie are on site as guests, and find the body, there's a devilish amount of unraveling that needs to be accomplished, and everyone except themselves are highly suspicious liars. Chief among them is Lucy, one of the narrators, whose husband William runs off with Jane two weeks after their child is born. The usual police gang is back, and previously work-obsessed Simon's rising doubts about his desire to remain on the job is the most startling plot point to those familiar with the doggedness of the quirky eccentric. The fact that author Hannah has been officially designated as the Agatha Christie heir by her executors, and has written four Poirot mysteries, is in evidence here, where there are many resemblances to "Death on the Nile" and the like. Thoroughly enjoyable - and if you haven't read the other books in the Zailer-Waterhouse pantheon, start with 2006's Little Face. show less
Buying Closed Casket was the triumph of hope over experience. In 2014 author Sophie Hannah released The Monogram Murders, the first Hercule Poirot novel since Curtain: Poirot's Last Case: A Hercule Poirot Mystery was published in 1975. While not up to Dame Agatha Christie’s highest standards, Hannah’s novel wasn’t too shabby. So I bought Closed Casket hoping for better than a pleasant read and for something less convoluted and implausible than The Monogram Murders.
Was my hope show more justified? Not a chance.
Just as Jill Paton Walsh can’t quite capture the voice of Dorothy L. Sayers, Hannah can’t really sound like Christie in the way that, say, Laurie R. King can channel Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. But I’ve never really held that against Hannah. However, Hannah seems to think that the way to recreate a successful Christie novel is to pepper a house party with lots of loathsome characters and then set Poirot and Scotland Yard detective Edward Catchpool (a transparent Captain Hastings surrogate) to bumble about. Early in the novel, a viciously rude character asks Poirot if he’s left his brain in London; soon I began to suspect the same thing. Hannah’s Poirot is much less astute and more needlessly secretive than the real one and, unlike Hastings, Edward Catchpool is paranoid and unlikable.
Author Athelinda “Athie” Playford has made a great success with her series of children’s mysteries featuring a gang of 10-year-old sleuths led by her moppet heroine “Shrimp” Seddon. Lady Playford decides to disinherit her dimwitted son and her venomous, selfish daughter in favor of her Pollyannaish secretary, Joseph Scotcher, a man dying of kidney disease so advanced that he is confined to a wheelchair and attended full time by a nurse. All of the characters — saving Hercule Poirot and Dr. Randall Kimpton, the fiancé of Lady Playford’s daughter Claudia — are so cardboard that you could make cereal boxes out of them.
Naturally, part of the mystery would be why a robust woman like Lady Playford would bother with changing her will in the autumn to benefit a man who won’t live to inherit; however, when the clever, imaginative Lady Playford reveals her reason, it makes no sense at all. In addition, Lady Playford, an obviously intelligent woman, seems shocked when her children aren’t happy with the new will. Damn! Why would they be? Closed Casket isn’t as lousy as The Big Four, Christie’s worst novel by far, but it’s a pretty pedestrian novel with a denouement that would seem contrived if I hadn’t been past caring by that point.
I’ve been trying to think for whom this book would be a good read. Christie scholars? No, they’d be better off with the original novels and Christie’s correspondence and notes. Christie devotees, desperate for yet one more glimpse of the Belgian detective? I guess, for some, Closed Casket would be better than nothing, although, in my case, I wish I could get back the 10 hours I spent listening to it on Audible. Actually, the person I would most recommend to read this book would be Christie’s grandson, Mathew Prichard, in the vain hope that he would see that he sold out his grandmother for 30 pieces of silver. Mr. Prichard, you could have done much better than hand over your legacy to the lackluster Sophie Hannah. If you find a new author to write the next Hercule Poirot/Edward Catchpool novel, I might be back for more. Otherwise, this is goodbye. show less
Was my hope show more justified? Not a chance.
Just as Jill Paton Walsh can’t quite capture the voice of Dorothy L. Sayers, Hannah can’t really sound like Christie in the way that, say, Laurie R. King can channel Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. But I’ve never really held that against Hannah. However, Hannah seems to think that the way to recreate a successful Christie novel is to pepper a house party with lots of loathsome characters and then set Poirot and Scotland Yard detective Edward Catchpool (a transparent Captain Hastings surrogate) to bumble about. Early in the novel, a viciously rude character asks Poirot if he’s left his brain in London; soon I began to suspect the same thing. Hannah’s Poirot is much less astute and more needlessly secretive than the real one and, unlike Hastings, Edward Catchpool is paranoid and unlikable.
Author Athelinda “Athie” Playford has made a great success with her series of children’s mysteries featuring a gang of 10-year-old sleuths led by her moppet heroine “Shrimp” Seddon. Lady Playford decides to disinherit her dimwitted son and her venomous, selfish daughter in favor of her Pollyannaish secretary, Joseph Scotcher, a man dying of kidney disease so advanced that he is confined to a wheelchair and attended full time by a nurse. All of the characters — saving Hercule Poirot and Dr. Randall Kimpton, the fiancé of Lady Playford’s daughter Claudia — are so cardboard that you could make cereal boxes out of them.
Naturally, part of the mystery would be why a robust woman like Lady Playford would bother with changing her will in the autumn to benefit a man who won’t live to inherit; however, when the clever, imaginative Lady Playford reveals her reason, it makes no sense at all. In addition, Lady Playford, an obviously intelligent woman, seems shocked when her children aren’t happy with the new will. Damn! Why would they be? Closed Casket isn’t as lousy as The Big Four, Christie’s worst novel by far, but it’s a pretty pedestrian novel with a denouement that would seem contrived if I hadn’t been past caring by that point.
I’ve been trying to think for whom this book would be a good read. Christie scholars? No, they’d be better off with the original novels and Christie’s correspondence and notes. Christie devotees, desperate for yet one more glimpse of the Belgian detective? I guess, for some, Closed Casket would be better than nothing, although, in my case, I wish I could get back the 10 hours I spent listening to it on Audible. Actually, the person I would most recommend to read this book would be Christie’s grandson, Mathew Prichard, in the vain hope that he would see that he sold out his grandmother for 30 pieces of silver. Mr. Prichard, you could have done much better than hand over your legacy to the lackluster Sophie Hannah. If you find a new author to write the next Hercule Poirot/Edward Catchpool novel, I might be back for more. Otherwise, this is goodbye. show less
Not My Poirot
A review of the William Morrow audiobook (October 24, 2023) narrated by Julian Rhind-Tutt and released simultaneously with the William Morrow hardcover/eBook.
This is a postcard from Outlier Island 🏝️📨📬 combined with an Unsatisfactory Ending Alert™.
I took a chance on this entry from Sophie Hannah's continuation series of Agatha Christie's show more detective Hercule Poirot and it was a shocking disappointment. The Poirot here was almost unrecognizable, an extreme parody, frequently talking about the "little gray cells" (rarely mentioned by Christie), being rude to women (actually saying "Shut up!") and without any of the sly humour of the originals.
I dipped my toe in at the wrong end, as this is #5 in the new series, and considered the worst by many of the other 1-star reviews. It is unbelievable that this has a 4-star average rating.
The first shock for me was that Poirot's companion is a completely new character Edward Catchpool, a Scotland Yard detective. Catchpool documents Poirot's cases in a manner similar to Captain Hastings, but with none of the obtuse delight of the latter. Poirot & Catchpool are seconded by Catchpool's domineering mother who insists that they accompany her to a decaying mansion for Christmas there to solve a 3-month old cold case in the vicinity.
The case takes a long time to get going as the guests settle in and meet the various residents who are also suspects in the murder which occurred in a nearby hospital. There is a long time spent decorating Christmas trees without any apparent investigation. Various subplots are introduced to no purpose and without resolution (e.g. Mr. Hurt-his-head, the mansion falling into the sea due to erosion, etc.). Then a second murder occurs with the same method as the first. but in the mansion itself.
The only recognizable aspect was the reveal delivered to the suspects all gathered together in a room at the conclusion. But the motive uncovered at the reveal was so unrealistic and absurd that an Unsatisfactory Ending Alert™ is the only option.
I listened to the audiobook edition during my December travels and I must confess my attention constantly wandered. That was probably nothing to do with the narration performance of Julian Rhind-Tutt but due to the material he had to work with.
Trivia and Link
If you want a fairly detailed recounting of the faults of this book, including a spoiler for the ending, then Anna Reads Mysteries's 1-star review is quite excellent.
I would have been tempted to mementoize* this book, except that would have been difficult to do with an audiobook while driving. But if it had been on paper I would have definitely made the jump.
Footnote
* Mementoize is an invented word as follows:
A review of the William Morrow audiobook (October 24, 2023) narrated by Julian Rhind-Tutt and released simultaneously with the William Morrow hardcover/eBook.
“Silent night,' Poirot murmured, moving closer to Arnold Laurier's desk. 'Murderous night. All is lies. All is...'
'Blight?”
This is a postcard from Outlier Island 🏝️📨📬 combined with an Unsatisfactory Ending Alert™.
I took a chance on this entry from Sophie Hannah's continuation series of Agatha Christie's show more detective Hercule Poirot and it was a shocking disappointment. The Poirot here was almost unrecognizable, an extreme parody, frequently talking about the "little gray cells" (rarely mentioned by Christie), being rude to women (actually saying "Shut up!") and without any of the sly humour of the originals.
I dipped my toe in at the wrong end, as this is #5 in the new series, and considered the worst by many of the other 1-star reviews. It is unbelievable that this has a 4-star average rating.
The first shock for me was that Poirot's companion is a completely new character Edward Catchpool, a Scotland Yard detective. Catchpool documents Poirot's cases in a manner similar to Captain Hastings, but with none of the obtuse delight of the latter. Poirot & Catchpool are seconded by Catchpool's domineering mother who insists that they accompany her to a decaying mansion for Christmas there to solve a 3-month old cold case in the vicinity.
The case takes a long time to get going as the guests settle in and meet the various residents who are also suspects in the murder which occurred in a nearby hospital. There is a long time spent decorating Christmas trees without any apparent investigation. Various subplots are introduced to no purpose and without resolution (e.g. Mr. Hurt-his-head, the mansion falling into the sea due to erosion, etc.). Then a second murder occurs with the same method as the first. but in the mansion itself.
The only recognizable aspect was the reveal delivered to the suspects all gathered together in a room at the conclusion. But the motive uncovered at the reveal was so unrealistic and absurd that an Unsatisfactory Ending Alert™ is the only option.
I listened to the audiobook edition during my December travels and I must confess my attention constantly wandered. That was probably nothing to do with the narration performance of Julian Rhind-Tutt but due to the material he had to work with.
Trivia and Link
If you want a fairly detailed recounting of the faults of this book, including a spoiler for the ending, then Anna Reads Mysteries's 1-star review is quite excellent.
I would have been tempted to mementoize* this book, except that would have been difficult to do with an audiobook while driving. But if it had been on paper I would have definitely made the jump.
Footnote
* Mementoize is an invented word as follows:
mementoizeshow less
məˈmenˌtōˈīz/
verb / neologism
Definitions:
• 1. to tell a story in reverse order, as in the film Memento (2000) by director Christopher Nolan.
“Christopher Nolan didn’t invent reverse chronology story telling, but his film title Memento is the easiest to make into a verb: mementoize."
• 2. to read a book in reverse order to finish it, especially when reading it in forward order is not very interesting or compelling.
“The book was so dull I had to mementoize it in order to get through it."
• 3. a fictitious word invented for use in book reviews by The Lone Librarian™.
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Statistics
- Works
- 77
- Also by
- 15
- Members
- 12,775
- Popularity
- #1,835
- Rating
- 3.5
- Reviews
- 600
- ISBNs
- 798
- Languages
- 21
- Favorited
- 15
