The only line I'll quote is the first one, and you know it already.

A nine, and the missing point is entirely to do with the closing pages, which I won't be going near.

Here's what's safe: a young woman marries a widower and goes to live at his house. Page one territory. Everything after that, no.

Mrs Danvers is the finest character in crime fiction who never commits a crime on the page. I'm not certain that's true, but I've said it now and I'm keeping it. Every scene she's in I read with my shoulders somewhere up around my ears.

I had a theory early on, chapter eleven or so, and I was flatly wrong, and being wrong about it made everything afterwards better. That almost never happens; usually being wrong just means I'd stopped paying attention.

The thing I love is how little actually occurs in the first half and how unbearable it manages to be regardless. A dinner. A dress. A conversation about flower arrangements. Nothing! And I was holding the paperback like it owed me money.

Read it on holiday in Cornwall, which was either perfect or a serious error depending on the day and the weather.

Second for my year, and I don't expect anything to shift it.