The Betrayals

Written by Bridget Collins and Sarah Ovens

Narrated by Bridget Collins and Sam Woolf

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‘Mesmerising’ Erin Kelly

‘Sumptuous’ Observer

‘Dizzyingly wonderful’ The Times

WINNING WAS EVERYTHING…

UNTIL IT DESTROYED THEM

Two young men, Léo and Carfax, close friends and fierce rivals.

A family ripped apart by madness and tragedy.

One woman, her life built upon a lie, with a mysterious connection to them all…

‘INGENIOUS’ GUARDIAN

‘A STORYTELLER OF RARE IMAGINATION’ MAIL ON SUNDAY

'BEAUTIFUL' JOANNA CANNON

‘BRILLIANT’ WOMAN & HOME

‘A RICH DELIGHT’ SANDRA NEWMAN

'TOTALLY ADDICTIVE' JOANNA GLEN

‘CAPTIVATING’ DAILY MIRROR

‘AN IMMERSIVE, IMAGINATIVE SLICE OF STORYTELLING’ DAILY EXPRESS

‘MAGICAL’ IRISH INDEPENDENT

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Nov 12, 2020
• ISBN: 9780008272203

Bridget Collins

Bridget Collins is the international bestselling author of The Binding and The Betrayals. She is also the author of seven acclaimed books for young adults and has had two plays produced, one at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Bridget trained as an actor at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art after reading English at King’s College, Cambridge. She lives in Kent, United Kingdom.

Reviews for The Betrayals

[mickyfine · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Newlywed Gwenda Reed has arrived in England with the goal of purchasing a house for herself and her husband, Giles, somewhere in the south of the country. As she tours the countryside she falls in love with Hillside near Dillsmouth. But as Gwenda lives in the house she is increasingly spooked by how familiar the house feels. While visiting distant relatives in London, with whom Miss Marple is also staying, a stray line in a play brings back horrific memories for Gwenda that seem to indicate a murder may have taken place in her home. While Miss Marple advises to leave everything be, Gwenda and Giles can't resist the mystery and so Miss Marple comes to town to keep the young couple from stumbling into too much trouble.The final Miss Marple mystery is just as delightful as all that came before. While I did deduce the whodunnit just a page or two before the final reveal, the reading experience was in no way diminished. Christie's mysteries are always an excellent choice and I can't recommend them enough if British mysteries are at all your thing.

[iudita_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book had great bones but it needed more fleshing out. Collins created this great setting and she could have done so much with it, but there were many aspects of the story that are never fully developed. I was enjoying my time at Montverre and was hungry for more details. The story lags just a bit through the middle which really wasn't a problem for me but she could have used that space to embellish the story. There is a twist in the plot that I didn't see coming and an ending that I didn't expect, so that was interesting. I also enjoyed the way the book was structured. This is my second book by Bridget Collins and I think she has wonderful story ideas. I'll always look forward to whatever she puts out next despite being a bit critical of this one.

[figgles_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

One of her best - newlyweds Giles and Gwenda move to Britain from NZ and coincidentally buy the house that Gwenda had lived in as a young child, the house from which her young stepmother had disappeared eighteen years earlier. Gwenda, alarmingly, begins to remember more about that time, and fortunately Miss Marple gets involved. The more they uncover, the more things begin to get dangerous. Re-read this not long after reading Professor Monckton-Smith's book "In Control" about coercive control and how it leads to murder and there are parallels in this much earlier fictional work..

[thornton37814 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In this short Miss Marple mystery, a young couple purchased a home. It invokes a memory in the young woman of a strangled woman named Helen. After meeting Miss Marple who encourages the woman to write to someone who may know if she'd ever lived in England, she finds the woman she saw was probably her stepmother. However, no one ever suspected the woman dead. The story told at the time was the woman ran off. Untangling eighteen years of lies, the couple, with the help of Miss Marple, find the truth. I knew from the moment we first met the guilty party who it was, but it was still a fun romp with Miss Marple via a Full Cast BBC production audiobook.

[passion4reading_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In an unnamed country with fascist undertones, disgraced politician Léonard Martin is sent back to Montverre, a monastery-like school in the mountains where they teach the grand jeu. There he meets Claire Dryden, the magister responsible for teaching the game, and the only woman ever to cross the school's threshold. Torn between resentment and a growing attraction, the two perform a delicate dance, while the school suddenly becomes the focus of the government's cultural policy changes.The plot – whatever there is of it – is very difficult to describe, as the reader seems to spend a great deal of time inside the two main protagonists' heads, with excursions into Léo's diary entries during his training at Montverre, and the enigmatic character of the Rat. While this isn't exactly a page turner, the internal dialogue of Léo and Claire gets under your skin, and I couldn't stop thinking about the two of them. And while the book can't be called a whole-hearted success because there were sections where the novel definitely dragged – the passages about the intricacies of the grand jeu, for example, maybe because the novel thought itself too clever? – Bridget Collins' prose is once again worth savouring.

[nicx27 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I was a big fan of Bridget Collins' first book, The Binding, so I jumped at the chance to read The Betrayals. I'm not a fan of the fantasy genre and probably wouldn't have picked up The Betrayals had it not been for enjoying the earlier book so much, but I would say that Collins writes enchanted stories that aren't completely fantastical.The story is set almost entirely at Montverre, a mysterious school where the students (who are exclusively male) prepare for the grand jeu, a game which seems to consist of various elements which only really become clear as the story progresses. Léo is forced to return there, ten years after leaving, and he meets Claire who holds the highest position of Magister Ludi and is the only woman allowed to be there. He feels there is something between them, but what?We are thrust between Léo and Claire in the current time, Léo's diary from his previous stint at Montverre and brief intersections from The Rat. This device works well to tell the story of what happened in the past and how it is affecting the present.I struggled a little with the grand jeu sections, probably I needed to understand better what it actually was a little earlier. But I enjoyed the overall story of friendship, rivalry, love, and competitiveness. There were events in the story that I just never saw coming and the author did an amazing job at letting it unfold organically without giving anything away.The Betrayals is a beautifully written book, focusing on study and those difficult formative years in an unusual and enigmatic learning establishment. Collins seems to excel at writing historical fantasy with a toe in reality. I will admit I didn't always 'get' this book and that certain parts didn't completely work for me, but I'm glad I read it and the last 100 pages or so had me turning them as fast as I could to find out what would happen to Léo and Claire.

[quondame · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Once it seems likely there has been a murder the really interesting portion of the book is over, since the murderer should be obvious.

[deltaqueen50 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Sleeping Murder by Agatha Christie, the final Miss Marple mystery, was published posthumously in 1976, although she had written it years earlier during the Second World War. As a new bride comes to England ahead of her husband and purchases a house in which to start their life together, she starts having flashbacks about a murder. It turns out that she had lived in that very house as a very young child and may have been an eyewitness to the murder of her step-mother. Miss Marple, a family friend, although fearful of stirring up the past, does help the young couple as they investigate and, just as Miss Marple thought, the murderer is still very much in the picture and has no intention of allowing his crimes to be exposed. I thoroughly enjoyed Sleeping Murder. Miss Marple was shrewd yet compassionate and the newly weds were very likeable and sympathetic characters. Agatha Christie certainly knew how to put masterful puzzles together and then slowly allow the pieces to fall into place. With a few red herrings scattered about the sharp instincts of Miss Marple are called into play and she doesn’t disappoint.I was a little concerned about this being touted as Miss Marple’s “last case”, but Sleeping Murder was a clever, well-written story with no hint of finality aimed at Jane Marple. Once again I was both charmed and satisfied by an Agatha Christie mystery.

[obtusata · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

An interesting and easy read. I'd missed the mark when I guessed who did it, but that just made the explanation of why and how more interesting.

[tkcs-3 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Picked this up for $1.00 at the Agoura library book sale (every Saturday, downstairs).

5/7 Predictable and not one of her best, but still a pleasant read.

[jshillingford_2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

When I picked this up to read, I noticed it was billed as Miss Marple's "last case." However, it was not due to Marple's death, but rather the author's. It doesnt read as a finale, but being one if her last novels it does showcase how accomplished she had become at her craft.Recently married Gwenda is searching for a new home when she falls in love with Hillside. Once she's moved in, she begins to worry when she finds herself knowing things she shouldn't - such as the design of a wallpaper hidden behind a shelf. It's Miss Marple who zeroes in on the likeliest answer. Gwenda had lived in the house as a child! But her memory of a strangled women at the base of the stairs leaves her and her husband determined to learn the truth. Miss Marple advises them to let "sleeping murder" lie, but they are compelled to unravel the mystery. Yet, someone doesn't want them to learn what really happened to Helen.This was an excellent mystery with multiple viable suspects, and an exciting ending. Highly recommended.

[bevok-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The first Agatha Christie that I read (inspired me to read many others). A great story, one of her best.

[marcusbastos-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Thinking Retroactively Miss Jane Marple has many talents. In this case she shows a capacity to reflect and reconstruct acts retroactively. The plot is interesting. One has to think carefully to discover the murder. Agatha tells the story in a direct manner. Miss Marple comes in the scene in a politely way and gains the confidence of the persons involved. A good reading that shows some of Miss Marple's techniques.

[leslie398 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is one of my favorite Miss Marples and Rosemary Leach did a fine narration. Having read this several times before, I was able to appreciate how skillfully Christie gives you all the clues while misdirecting you! Only one place was there a slight flavor of 'cheating' when the narrative jumps in time from Kennedy with the Reeds to Lily's murder and back, implying that the murder happened simultaneously with the tea.

[brokentune · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Her words held all the pointed innuendo that elderly ladies are able to achieve with the minimum of actual statement.

I had low expectations for this one. Nemesis broke me. Nemesis was the book that obliterated any regards I may have harboured for Miss Marple.
It seems, however, that Sleeping Murder was written well before Nemesis, even if it was published last in the series, and that the Miss Marple of Sleeping Murder is not as annoying as her older self, yet.
As becomes clear at the end of this book, the Miss Marple in Sleeping Murder still has some spring in her step.

Yet, as far as Dame Agatha's books are concerned, this one is not her finest. There is a lot of repetition in the discussion of the mystery and the repetition makes it easy to predict the murderer fairly early on.

All in all, there isn't really anything about the story or the book that stands out but it is a light and quick read for the Christie completist.

[sasham-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Quite by accident I picked up this one at a book fair. At the same time I started reading The Mysterious Affair at Styles - The very first published Agatha Christie and this one which was her last published book. It was interesting to read them concurrently as there were about 45 years and dozens of books in between. Sleeping Murder was definitely easier to read - I just felt the story flowed easier and the description was shorter without losing any descriptive power. But having said that I enjoyed the Mysterious Affair as well - it just wasn't quite as smooth.

[cmlloyd67 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I remember this being amongst my favorite Agatha Christie novels when I read it in high school..way back in the 1980s.

[shsunon · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Newlyweds Gwen and Giles Reed purchase a home in England; so much about their new house seems familiar to Gwen: the wallpaper, a hidden door, the view from the nursery. Gwen has a feeling she has been here before and may have witnessed the murder of a strange woman. With the help of their savvy friend Miss Jane Marple the Reeds unravel a dangerous mystery. This mystery is typical Agatha Christie with lots of characters, twists and turns. Sleeping Murder, the final mystery solved by Jane Marple, was published posthumously.

[rubyscarlett-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

With a premise similar to that of Five Little Pigs or Nemesis - the investigation into a murder that's decades old - I would have expected a better novel. It wasn't abysmal but then again nothing stood out either. The characters are forgettable and flat and Christie should have made the house it's set in more atmospheric, I never really got a feel of the place and yet she does atmosphere so well when she wants to. Shame. Really should have ended the Marple novels with Nemesis, which is such a strong book. Still an entertaining read.

[nandakishore_varma-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In the beginning, a personal anecdote:

As a child, I was troubled intermittently by a nightmare. I am walking around the compound of my maternal grandfather's ancestral home, when I reach a dilapidated building in a secluded corner. I open it and enter, even though my better sense counsels against it. Inside, it is a prayer room dedicated to evil gods. Their pictures are hung all over the walls, and their ugly idols leer up at me. Also, the place is full of the images of the tortured victims of these deities, their silent screams, mutilated bodies and blood.

I wake up in a cold sweat.

The mystery of this dream was solved later. It was only a poster of Naraka (the Indian hell) which I saw as a child, in that house, which left a lasting impression on me.

I will not dwell on the Freudian aspects of this incident: just point out the fact that childhood traumas, however trivial, have lasting impacts. I speak from personal experience.

Onward with the review.

What if one has witnessed a murder as a toddler? What if one's childhood psyche had repressed that incident, until it came back to haunt one as a distorted vision in one's beautiful new home which one suddenly realises is none other than the venue of that Sleeping Murder?

One would go mad...that is what nearly happened to Gwen. Fortunately, she had Miss Marple to help.

Gwenda and Giles Reed return to England from New Zealand. She has no memories; as far as she knows, she has never been in England. However, buying the dream home she had set her eyes on, Gwen begins to be troubled by memories, which she thinks are from another life. She runs away to London to escape. However, watching a performance of the Duchess of Malfi, and hearing the words “cover her face; mine eyes dazzle; she died young” brings a terrifying image into her mind… the blue strangled face of a beautiful young girl, and she herself watching it through the bannisters… and the monkey’s paws…

Gwen is convinced that she is mad. But thankfully, she had chosen to stay with Raymond West, who most fortuitously had his Aunt Jane Marple on the premises. The old lady is not ready to go for a supernatural explanation. She has a much more prosaic one: Gwen has actually seen somebody murdered in the same house, where she has stayed as a child – a memory which has been suppressed.

The young lady and her husband soon find out that Miss Marple had hit the nail on the head. Gwen had stayed in the house as a little child, along with her father and her flighty stepmother Helen, who had disappeared, presumably run away with one of her many young men. However, Gwen’s father was convinced that he murdered her, and ultimately was committed and died in an asylum. But it is now possible that he may not have been mad – that Helen was actually murdered (though not by him). However, the tantalising question arises… if she was murdered, who is the killer?

Thus begins a murder investigation into the past by the young couple, against the counsel of Miss Marple to “leave sleeping murder lie”. Once she is convinced that they will not let go, Miss Marple agrees to join them, if only to keep them safe.

And thus begins a rollercoaster ride, one of Christie’s most suspenseful novels.

***

As a mystery, Sleeping Murder is rather predictable. There was no “aha!” moment at the end, because I already had a good idea who the murderer was. But I give the novel four stars for its structure and breakneck pace, rather like a Hitchcock movie… and also for the personal experience I quoted at the beginning. I could sympathise with Gwenda.

[jiraiya_5 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Miss Marple appears scantily in this particular story. Here, the murder dominates the scene. I've noticed that the murders that Agatha Christie places in the relative past, that is prior to the current investigation, well these murders always have the bodies tumbled out of the cupboard. Books of Agatha Christie that use this device appeal to me, and also to many others, judging by the several mysteries where the author uses this trick.It is a trick after all, a very solid gimmick that engenders macabre feelings like there was no tomorrow. I scarcely noticed that Miss Marple was not being her usual self, she didn't draw too much parallel with human psychology when explaining her thoughts at the end. In fact there's little proof that Miss Marple knew with certainty of the murderer's identity. There's no proof of the doctor's crime even. Thankfully it's not one of those stories where the frail Miss Marple derails the mind of a hardened serial killer, with cheap tricks, like in "A Murder Is Announced" for example.So yeah I solved this case. However, the case was very deceiving and I was up against a palpable wall of fog. There was not much to latch onto. There is no slow start to this book, which was one of the reasons for the five stars I gave it. I was completely baffled by the events leading to the bewilderment of one Gwenda Reed. Along with the sense of evil there's a forbidding atmosphere and a hint of regret and a pining at the waste of life.There were two things that put me on the right track. First the action of cutting that tennis net to shreds. Secondly, the murderer is mostly the one who is able to influence the case and distort facts to his advantage. I didn't pick on the wound that Helen got on her foot. I only knew that the doctor didn't have a brain teaser of an alibi.I absolutely loved the quote from the Duchess of Malfi. The quote, which I can't paste because it's too much of a bother to go look for it in my ebook, defines the galling evilness of the crime. It also gave away the fact that the murderer was insane to a degree. I would have wanted for Miss Marple to rant against the wicked nature of the crime, but she was surprisingly passive in this book. If I remember correctly there was one moment where her eyes expressed anger but that was in the middle of the book and at that time she wasn't sure of the solution to the murder. Another reason for liking this book so much is the vivid depiction of the characters. Among all the pure and innocent characters that Agatha Christie has thrust upon our readership, the young Reed couple was one the most believable. It's very difficult to make decent, innocent characters come to life. The author presents Gwenda and her husband in their non British simplicity. They are so pure that the finicky English countryside people warm up to them with no trouble. It's unclear whether the main protagonists had a New Zealand accent and how strong it was. But the Reed couple were life like and they hid the fact that they were cogs in the story which I enjoyed very much.This is, I regret, already the last Marple book that was unread uptil now. The book called Nemesis had a similar strong presence of evil and a murder set in the past, with a close person as the murderer. Miss Marple books are as fine as Alice In Wonderland or Sherlock Holmes stories. They are the finest simple sustenance that the English literature can impart to the young and not so young. They are to be cherished.

[condorena · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is an interesting Christie book. She deals with young married love, brotherly love, disappointed love destructive obsessive love and unrequited love. Best of all the kind of love she describes love like that of Miss Marple who has a great love of her fellow man; who when she sees a young couple headed for heartbreak as well as danger puts herself up as a guardian angel.

The plot is well described by other reviewers so I won't go into that. What amazed me was that when this was adapted for the storyline, the relationships and basic plot were changed by the powers that be. I am glad I read the book, because it does round out Jane Marple.

[meditationesmartini · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Hmmm, I dunno, the whodunit thing kept me mildly interested while I was reading it, but I can't help but think there's a certain jot or tittle of camp in the way people enjoy this stuff. Maybe if I'd come to it already loving the old lady. I mean, it was stylish, from time to time--I liked the quotation from The Duchess of Malfi as a central plot point--but the class attitudes on display seemed fairly archaic for the '30s. And as far as whodunit, is the formula just sketch us a bunch of likely rogues and then it's always the least likely one from that delimited field? I haven't read a tonne of these books but it seems like the twist is always it's the least likely one and if so that's hardly a twist at all.

[spincerely · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Read for book club - not bad at all! This is only the second Agatha Cristie that I have read - the first was And Then There Were None but that was many, many years ago. I would read more.

[laurat81 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Sleeping Murder, the last of the Miss Marple series -the first for me- was a bit slow, but interesting. I already had a hunch as to who the killer was pretty early on, unlike the other couple of Agatha Christie novels I've read.

[nelliemc · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Classic Ms. Marple -- what's not to love? -- And goodbye Miss Marple -- thanks for all the joy.

[lilylaruso · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I always love Miss Marple mysteries and this one did not disappoint. The culprit was a surprise but then I was mad at myself for not figuring it out just like Jane did!

[mdtwilighter · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

When Gwenda and GIles move back to the English countryside aftter just getting married. After buying a beautiful house by the sea Gwenda 'see's' a woman lying, dead, at the bottom of the stairs. She thinks she's going crazy, but Miss. Marple, the aunt of a friend, has a different theory. She thinks that Gwenda lived in the house when she was younger and is remembering a murder she witnessed. Now Gwenda and Giles are looking for answers to a murder comitted 18 years ago.The book was suspenseful and interesting. A great mystery. The ending was really surprising too. 

[whitewavedarling · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was a relaxing and engaging read, perfect for a quiet night's escape. It was also a bit haunting at times, which I admit I was surprised by--one of those that can sneak up on you at times. It's certainly enough to push me toward picking up another Miss Marple mystery in the future when I need a break from heavier reading.

[riverwillow · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Gwenda Reed buys a house in Dillmouth and starts to worry as she discovers a plastered over door in exactly the place that she imagined it and that a room was originally wallpapered in the style she wanted. Then a trip to the theatre causes a vision or memory of a woman murdered on the stairs - is she going mad? Miss Marple saves the day and helps Gwenda uncover what really happened. I particularly love the Gothic feel to this novel, as Gwenda tries to work out if she really witnessed a murder.