July book club - The Deaths by Mark Lawson

Thank you for the book , I thoroughly enjoyed
reading it. However did think something
else was going to be revealed at the end!

"The Deaths " is a waffle of a book, sadly boring, and lacking any holding factors. It has been difficult to remember who all the characters are and who is with who.

I found this book to be very frustrating as it makes you lose the flow of a story if you have to stop and think who is being written about.

Mr.Whitehouse read it first as he wanted a holiday read - but he gave up after 40 pages!! Not a good sign.

Back home I picked the book up and got much further - page 372 - but then lost the will to live and was not remotely interested in the ending.

Thanks all the same for the book. Regards.

As I said originally it is not the type of book that I would normally read but now that I have finished it, it did grow on me and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I thought that it was very well written, and the shallowness of the "eight" was incredible.

Thank you for my book, I had guessed it was from Gransnet as publishers don't usually give away willy nilly !

I was already finishing another book when this one arrived, however I am now a third of the way through, so cannot comment on it as a whole.

Like other people have said, It has been difficult to remember who all the characters are and who is with who.
I am wondering if the author has been really clever in developing characters that are unlikeable? So far there's only 'Simon' that I can stand. I will stick with it til' the end but I do find my mind wandering at certain points.

This was a unusual type of book for me to read but really enjoyed it. At the beginning had to focus to remember each couple.
Thought the wives social lives must have been boring spending so much time with the same group of people
my question is was the media reports of the bankers bonuses and lifestyle part of the research for this book?

Great satire on the rich in our society and their shallowness. I very much enjoyed this book and it's dark humour. I really disliked the characters yes even the saintly Doctor always the sign of a good read and enjoyed guessing which one of the horrible families would end up murdered! would like to ask Mark Lawson if this satire is based on personal experiences?

I had guessed correctly which family would be killed- I was very wrong with the killer.

Thanks for this book, a pleasant suprise.
I read the book over a few days , wanting to find out what happens.
I did find it a little frustrating at times, with so many characters they way the story flowed I was unsure who I was reading about.

I did want to know more about some of the characters, to learn more about how they were in their 'day jobs', so to speak, especially the husbands. Were
they different people in their macho environments.

I had guessed early on that Max was in trouble, but not necessarily how he would solve his issues.

Overall, a good read.

Thanks

I too found it hard to keep track of the various partners and also ended up making a note of them. I find this very frustrating as it makes you lose the flow of a story if you have to stop and think who is being written about.
After reading the back cover, I expected it to be at the least amusing, if not hilarious, but was sadly mistaken.

The murders seemed only incidental to the story. They were rarely mentioned in the first half of the book, as its the main purpose seemed to be to develop the characters. I found the characters quite unlikeable and for this reason I'm afraid I did not enjoy this book.

My third message! (Is this allowed)
I wonder if Mark Lawson based these characters on people he knows?
Also I feel it would have helped elderly readers like me if there had been
a list of the families on a page at the beginning. I have just finished the
Cazalet Chronicles by Elizabeth Jane Howard, and they had this at the beginning of the books which I kept referring to.
I am making my own as I work out who belongs to who amongst this lot.
Milly.

I think this is a very well written book in general. It does take a little time, and rereading to get the characters properly established in your head but I'm happy with that. Nowhere near as complicated as Wolf Hall in that respect. I would like to ask Mark Lawson how he wrote a book like that. Did he deal with one character at a time and then slot them all together, or was he able to write them in the order we read the book in?

Yesterday when I first got The Deaths on returning from holiday
I posted a message saying I couldn't catch up with you all and ask a question in time, but today being nearly half way through the book, I feel I want to say that the way the book is written is very good and I didn't want to put it down, but why oh why must we have such explicit sex details. They seem unnecessary and if one is on ones own and therefore reads with meals, it quite puts one off ones food!!!!!

I don't like the characters except perhaps with the exception of the GP and her husband, and am having difficulty in remembering which of the others are married to each other, but as they are all fairly unpleasant I don't really care and am looking forward to them being murdered! I shall now pick it up again, and hope they have satisfied their sex drives and we can get on with the story.
(I am on page 128)
Milly.

Thank you - book has arrived. I am just starting the big read and already feel intrigued by the modern setting.

Oh and I have added Mark Lawson to my list of authors to read - although I found it bleak, I really did enjoy reading it.

I've just finished reading The Deaths so I hope I'm in time with my question.

I've enjoyed reading this book especially as not only was it a murder mystery with a difference - not knowing who the victims are until almost the end - but also because Aga Sagas are not normally written by men.

I loved the red herrings especially the unknown teenager whose death added to the sadness of the horrific shootings. The hints at well known financial scandals used as building blocks to the story also added to the mystery and suspense.

The hopelessness of the final death didn't surprise me at all.

My question to Mark is: Was it difficult to balance the dark humour and satirical observations in the novel with the build up of tension so essential to revealing the tragic events? Also was your intention to leave the reader wondering whether it really was a massive wake-up call for the remaining characters?

Re. questions for Mark Lawson:
Did you have to draw up a family tree for each of the families in 'The Deaths' in order to help you keep clear in your mind who was who and doing what, or did you manage to keep everybody and everything neatly filed away in your head?
By the way, we really miss you on 'Front Row' and longer listen as much as before.

I have just returned from holiday and find my neighbour had taken in a parcel for me - hooray - a new book, The Deaths. Thank you Gransnet.

I took it to bed last night and read the first chapter and the beginning of the second and can see I am going to enjoy it, but will be a long way behind everyone else so must hold back from reading the comments and answers from Mark Lawson until I have finished it. A bit of self control needed!
Milly.

Thank you so much for sending me a copy of The Deaths by Mark Lawson. I have thoroughly enjoyed reading it. The plot was a clever one although I did get a little confused with the characters at the start of the book. I think this was as a result of them all arriving at the same time, but realistically it couldn't have been done any other way. Would I buy another of Mark's books? Definitely!!

I have finished the book! Having created a chart of whose who and who belonged to which family I began to enjoy the book and look for clues and reasons. I did guess which family. Sadly I still didn't like any of the characters, I think they were too cliched. As humans we all feel insecure at times. We go through good times and bad and it is called living. I suppose my finally summing up is sadness if indeed there are people like that out there.
Thank you for my book.

I do keep adding to this!!! I'm wondering about the actual shootings? From the descriptions he seems to have been using a rifle, although there's been no mention of him having one or hunting with one. There is also a mention of both barrels at one point which would suggest a shotgun, but he couldn't have shot the dogs with a shot gun as there wouldn't be one neat bullet hole and the noise would have woken the entire household. The noise also means he must have used a rifle for his family. It seems odd that he could have shot both his daughter and her half brother without causing some sort of disturbance when they were apparently still awake - especially as a long barrelled gun can be very awkward to use at short range against someone who doesn't want to be shot. Sorry to nit pick but my husband used to do a lot of shooting and the lack of detail niggles a bit.

None of the characters seemed to read much, so perhaps these people don't in real life?

Now I've read it again I'm really getting rather fond of some of the characters although I think I feel most sympathy for Jenno who didn't quite fit anywhere. As a second wife she must always have felt a bit insecure and being younger than the other women she always seemed to be trying to catch up.

I would like to ask Mark how the kind of people he is satirising in this dark novel have received it, if, of course, they have read it. I'd say that it's a must for their book groups, wouldn't you?

I too enjoyed the book, though I did find the childish names for bodily functions a bit tedious! There also seemed to be a bit too much childish reference to sex, though maybe I'm just getting a bit Puritanical in my old age!
I did enjoy trying to work out which family had been murdered and I liked the twist in that it involved the estranged son as well as the other two children.
It was good start to the book and added to the interest...who's it going to be?
Not sure whether I'd have said it was a comedy, though some of the characters were laughable!
My question to mark would be:
Do you know a group of people like 'The Eight', or were they purely a figment of your imagination?

Thanks Grannynet for my copy!

I've loved this book and am now busily recommending it to all and sundry. I even like the expensive soft feel of the cover! It was bleak, as Helen2014 says, but I did find a lot to laugh at in the way six of The Eight behaved and perceived themselves. Yes, most of the characters were obnoxious, but we weren't supposed to like them and they rang true to me, on the whole. I've overheard (and been mightily amused by) snippets of conversation between some of the self-styled elite that could have sparked a class war and would have dropped nicely into the dialogue of the book. I agree with an earlier poster - there's a lot to be said for having to travel second class.

Of course there are always quibbles - like others, I found the juvenile sniggering about and obsession with sex, particularly from Libby, very tedious and not at all convincing. Also, I don't think Dr Emily would have kept company with the rest of them, though I appreciate she was there for a reason. And no, I don't think condoms would have been the birth control of choice for these couples either, unless there was a localised STD issue.

I'm sure the final hinted-at event did happen and I think it was completely in character, given the worries and events that had gone before and the pressures that this person was under and knew he would continue to be under for some time.

My question to Mark Lawson would be:

Do you think the Loadsamoney culture of conspicuous consumption is on the wane in the current economic climate, when even those with money are giving Lidl a try? Or do you think it's primed to bounce back as big as ever and twice as nasty?

I commented earlier but that was before I had finished the book. Now that I have read it and had time to reflect on it I want to pick up on something said in an earlier comment and that is about the mis-match between the reviews on the back cover and the 'bleakness' of the story. It really wasn't 'hilarious', or a 'social comedy'. I found it bleak and nihilistic and I would like to ask Mark Lawson is that how he interprets his characters, does he see them differently and are they as he planned them to be or did they evolve during the writing?