{"id":2646,"date":"2021-12-09T16:08:30","date_gmt":"2021-12-09T16:08:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/?p=2646"},"modified":"2023-03-12T16:10:10","modified_gmt":"2023-03-12T16:10:10","slug":"the-couple-at-number-9","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/?p=2646","title":{"rendered":"The Couple at Number 9"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A richly layered novel\u2014part mystery, part suspense\u2014but completely satisfying. Saffron and her boyfriend are renovating their dreamy Cotswold cottage to make room for a baby, as Saffy is pregnant. Her grandmother, Rose, once lived here, although no one in the family even knew of the cottage\u2019s existence until a few years back. But when the contractors tear up the back garden to expand the kitchen, they discover not one but two corpses. Questions lead back to Rose, now in a nursing home with dementia, and soon enough Lorna, Saffy\u2019s delightful mom, flies in from the south of Spain\u2014tan, oversized earrings, skinny jeans, Spanish boy-toy\u2014to help sort out what has blown up into a murder inquiry. <strong>This novel is overflowing with narrators and stories\u2014we have documents from the past, Lorna\u2019s memories, Rose\u2019s memories, another storyline from a different family\u2014and that\u2019s just the start. But Douglas manages to keep all the balls in the air, the pace brisk, and the ending a total head-spinner<\/strong>. A classic slow burn, this novel will appeal to fans of Catherine Steadman and Lucy Foley.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A richly layered novel\u2014part mystery, part suspense\u2014but completely satisfying. Saffron and her boyfriend are renovating their dreamy Cotswold cottage to make room for a baby, as Saffy is pregnant. Her&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2645,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[50,51],"class_list":["post-2646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-review","tag-suspense","tag-thrillers"],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/formidable\/4\/Couple-at-9-400x400.jpg","featured_image_src_square":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/formidable\/4\/Couple-at-9-400x600.jpg","author_info":{"display_name":"Brian Kenney","author_link":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/?author=1"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2646\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}