The Blurb:

“Fliss Benson is a TV producer struggling to deal with a personal tragedy in her own life. She receives at work an anonymous card which consists of 16 numbers arranged in four rows of four. These numbers mean absolutely nothing to her. At the same time, she is handed a particularly unwelcome assignment: she has to work on a documentary about cot death and three mothers accused (wrongly, it seems) of murder: Helen Yardley, Sarah Jaggard and Rachel Hines. The controversial Dr Judith Duffy, who was responsible for the arraignment of the women after the death of their children, is now under investigation for misconduct, and the women have been set free. Fliss Benson’s reluctance to work on the film springs from a particularly personal issue — involving both cot death and the suicide of someone very close to her.”

(source: Amazon)

What I thought:

The strength of this book, for me, was the subject matter. I love a good pyschological thriller anyway but you’d have to have a heart of stone not to be moved by cot deaths and cases involving the deaths of babies which are at the centre of this book. It’s topical, relevant and current. And it made me think and ask myself questions that I had perhaps not asked myself before – A Room Swept White is a very clever book that looks at this whole issue without taking sides.

The story is told in both first person (from the view point of Fliss Benson, a TV producer who is pretty low down the pecking order) and also the third person so the reader is privvy to all the goings on in the case. The book starts with the murder of Helen Yardley who was aquitted a few years ago of killing her two babies and spent 9 years in jail for their murder. She teamed up with a TV producer / Journalist called Laurie Natriss and together they formed JIPAC (Justice for Innocent Parents and Carers) and subsequently set about securing the releases of other women who had also been convicted of killing their own babies or those in their care. The morning after Helen’s murder, Fliss Benson is suddenly promoted and asked to carry on making the documentary about the released women, and Laurie Natrass leaves the company. That same morning Fliss received in the post a small white card with 16 numbers on it, which means nothing to her until she finds out that Helen has the same card left on her body by the murderer. What follows is a quest to not only find Helen Yardley’s killer before he strikes again but also to get to the truth about whether she did or didn’t kill her two boys.

What let this book down for me were most of the characters. I understand that it’s a plot driven book rather than character driven (which is why I love thrillers as they’re fast paced and you want to know what’s going on rather than what a character is wearing) but even so, I didn’t actually like most of them. Fliss, the first person protagonist, was made out to be incompetent and ditzy and I could never fathom her reason for witholding some evidence from the police. I had no mental image of her and she felt very one-dimensional, as did some of the other big characters. There was no-one at all in the book whom I actually routed for.

What I did like about the book, however, was the whole issue around the enormity of responsibilty in these cases and just how easily the media can make us believe one thing and then another. All throughout the book I though I believed one thing and then realised that I actually had made a decision on very few facts. Once other facts came to light I was swayed again (in fact several times). Either I am incredibly gulliable or the media is way more powerful than even I imagined. The whole issue around medical witnesses in legal cases was fascinating and certainly an eye-opener (and you may end up thinking differently by the end of the book than you did at the start).

To conclude, I really enjoyed this book. Despite the rather wooden characters and some ill-placed humour (Fliss’s comedic inner monologue felt a little uncomfortable to read sometimes as it didn’t fit with the overall tone of the book), the actual plot and subject matter was fascinating, surprising and gripping.

I would recommend this book. Have you read it or any of Sophie’s other books?

There is a great interview with Sophie Hannah over on Simon’s blog at Savidge Reads which I recommend you check out.