I can’t remember the last time I set a book aside at the five per cent mark. I’ve listened to the (short) prologue, one point of view from the ex-wife and one point of view from the new wife and that’s enough to let me know that this book isn’t for me.

I already know that I’m not going to empathise with either woman but that’s not why I’m setting the novel aside. It’s the writing that’s getting to me.

The interior monologues from the women sound not like a person’s thought but like position papers summarising their respective histories and the expectations and concerns about the upcoming weekend. I don’t feel that I’ve met the characters. I feel like I’ve been given a briefing on who they are so that I can play a murder mystery game.

The audiobook gives each woman a narrator, which is just as well as their language and speech patterns are so close that I wouldn’t have known who was speaking.

Then there are small annoyances like have the phrase ‘the oncoming snow’ repeated often enough for me to notice it in such a short piece of text.

I know I’m just going to get more critical of the prose as the book goes on and that I won’t be able to sit back and pretend I’m playing Cluedo, so I’m setting this aside and counting it as a buying error on my part.