Two sides of the story, one killer - His & Hers by Alice Feeney | Unpopular Opinion

Jessi Tayylor
5 minutes ago
11 min read

Two sides of the story, one killer - His & Hers by Alice Feeney | Unpopular Opinion

Welcome to Unpopular Opinion where I'll be sharing my thoughts on a novel I've read. You could be for it or you could be against it.

Warning: I’ll try my best not to mention heavy spoilers. Keyword: “Try”. There may or may not be spoilers about the book in this post. Read at your own risk.

Two sides of the story, one killer - His & Hers by Alice Feeney | Unpopular Opinion

Introduction

I picked up this book with no expectations, except that I was hoping it would be a psychological thriller and less romance. Thinking about it, I did have the habit of not checking what the book is about before reading.

His & Hers is a Dual POV between Detective Chief Inspector Jack Harper and BBC presenter Anna Andrews, an ex-couple whose marriage lost its spark as the years went by. They parted ways after a tragic incident (that I will specify later). When a woman was murdered in Blackdown (their hometown), their jobs reunited them, but the case brought them closer, as the murdered victim was someone they both knew.

Book

We’re introduced to our first character. Anna Andrews works as a BBC presenter for the one o’clock news and she loves that job. She loves being on-air.

Anna is caught off-guard when she’s told she won’t be presenting the one o’clock news one day. No one informed her that Cat Jones is back from her maternity leave, and she’s going to take her original position back as presenter. Anna is jealous of Cat’s beauty, but mostly she’s jealous of the position she’s been substituting in for two years. When a murder happens in Blackdown, Cat suggests that Anna covers the story on the field.

Despite Anna’s inner monologue not wanting to go back there, she accepts. Apparently, she has a past she doesn’t want to face. To the point that she’s been neglecting to check up on her mother with dementia. Anna refuses to believe that her mother’s condition is getting worse until she does visit and sees for herself.

We later meet Jack Harper. There’s a stereotyping voice in my head that says he’s bored of his job, especially if he says that nothing ever happens in Blackdown. Let alone a murder.

As if he jinxed it, a murder does occur. He and his partner (or subordinate) Priya Patel (I’m not sure it’s clear to me what she is to him) go to a crime scene in the woods.

Victim #1: Rachel Hopkins

She’s a rich woman, identified by her choice of clothing. She’s beautiful—or was beautiful. Her shoes are missing, but what bothered Jack are her fingernails painted with TWO FACED. Whatever that meant, Jack is yet to find out. The disturbing detail of Rachel’s corpse doesn’t end there. Jack notices her mouth. And we later discover the killer’s M.O.

Rachel’s tongue is tied by a red and white friendship bracelet.

Jack later spots Anna among the media people who wants a scoop on Blackdown’s latest case. Jack and Anna aren’t friendly with each other, they were just professionals doing their jobs.

Jack doesn’t want to reveal the identity of the first victim, but he feels that Anna already knows something. The thing is… Rachel was Anna’s best friend back in high school. And Rachel was Jack’s affair. He remembered vividly that that he slept with Rachel in the car (his car I think, because Rachel’s sports car is too good for that haha). It was probably Rachel’s last moment before being murdered.

Today’s suspect: Jack Harper

Victim #2: Helen Wang

The next murder victim was called in by Anna herself at the school she once attended at. She claims that an anonymous caller tipped her to be there.

Helen Wang was the school’s new principal and her death is probably the most brutal of all (yes, even compared with the other victims to come). She has countless staples on her chest that spelled LIAR on it, her throat slit (and if I remember correctly, her head fell—not too keen on the detail as I was creeped out reading it at 1am). There’s also sprinkles of drugs on her head.

Just like the first victim, the killer’s M.O. is found wrapped around her tongue (or was it somewhere on her slit throat, again, it was too creepy, I skimmed through the corpse description haha).

The friendship bracelet isn’t just a random one. It appears to be the same one that Anna is wearing. And the same one that five girls are wearing in an old photo. Jack pieces together that Rachel, Helen, Anna and Zoey (Jack’s sister) were good friends in high school. But as far as Jack remembers, something happened between these four, and there’s a fifth girl in the photo he doesn’t know.

Today’s suspect: Anna Andrews.

Sidetrack before Victim #3

Somewhere along the investigation, we discover that Anna and Jack tried to have a baby to ignite the spark of their marriage. It did. It worked. Until the baby died and things were falling apart again. This is why Anna is an alcoholic. Jack, on the other hand, blamed himself. He suggested that he and Anna celebrate their anniversary and leave the baby with Mrs. Andrews (Anna’s mother).

Another past we uncover as the investigation continues is Anna’s past. The so-called “friendship” Anna has with the girls aren’t exactly as I imagined it.

Rachel is beautiful on the outside, runs charities and being nice, but she steals from charity and she gets what she wants, even if it meant doing lewd things (like with their professor who was supposed to fail them). Rachel runs the group, what she does, everyone does. Anna just moved in Blackdown and it just so happened that Rachel “adopted” her into their group.

Helen is their provider of pills, something to keep their bodies slim. They judge Anna with the food she eats and tells her to take the pills. Helen also happens to be the smartest of them all.

Zoey is the one in charge of their clothes. Fashionable fur clothing from actual pets. (She has a shed full of locked cats even).

Sidetrack #2: The group photo

Anna notices a lonely girl at school and at some point felt the need to be nice to her. When she asks the group if it’s okay to invite Catherine Kelly to their table, at first everyone is against it, but when Rachel left and came back, suddenly they’re okay with it. So Anna invites Catherine to join them. Rachel accidentally spills Catherine’s coke and offers to give hers in replace of it.

What horrified Anna during this time is the note written for her not to tell Catherine what’s inside the coke can. So she doesn’t tell. Until Catherine drinks from the coke can, realizing too late that it’s not coke, but Rachel’s piss.

Timeskip to Anna’s 16th birthday where Anna spent weeks tying friendship bracelets for her three best friends (Rachel, Helen and Zoey) and even invited Catherine to the party. Mrs. Andrews even turned a blind eye with the booze they were bringing over for the party. Young Jack is also at the party and is the one who took the photo of the five girls.

However, Anna’s birthday turned sound real quick when Rachel invites them to go to the woods to meet with her friends. Rachel had a habit of taking pictures of throughout the flashback scenes, and apparently it’s because she makes money out of selling those pictures and selling the girls to spend a night with her male friends. Anna ran away that night and was also the last time she saw Catherine.

Victim #3: Zoey Harper

After Jack almost does something he’ll regret when he stays over at Priya’s house, he goes home and finds his niece unharmed but his sister dead inside the bathroom. His sister leaves him a clue to go with. She wrote with her blood “Andrews”. Which worries Jack if it means Anna is next or Anna is the killer.

Jack no longer has backup now that the evidences he’s been hiding from the police is found and it all points to him (throughout the book until this point, Jack has been finding things that ties him to Rachel’s murder like Rachel’s phone that he’s been holding onto and his missing boots that matched the ones found near the crime scene where Rachel was found, but he thinks someone’s framing him, and he couldn’t tell anyone).

Now that Priya is against him, Jack runs away with Zoey’s car.

With most of the girls in the group photo now dead, the only suspect left is Catherine and Anna.

Victim #4: Who would it be?

At the dead of night, Anna and her cameraman, Richard, supposedly has a rented apartment at the only hotel in town, but someone mysteriously cancels it. Richard offers up his wife’s place instead. Anna has no battery anymore so when Jack calls her, it doesn’t connect.

The house is old, creepy, abandoned, like the one from horror movies that you’re smart enough not to enter. She asks for a charger and Richard gives her one before disappearing somewhere in the house.

Meanwhile, Jack arrives at Anna’s old house, but neither Anna or Mrs. Andrews are at home. He’s worried now because the fifth girl in the photo—Catherine Kelly—has motive. And the fact that Zoey is telling him that Anna is next. Priya tracks him down. Jack convinces her to side with him so they both drove to search for Anna. The car crashes in the woods somewhere down the road so they have to walk.

Back to Anna, she manages to turn her phone back on and tell Jack where she’s at. When Richard screams, she gets worried and goes to look for him. Anna leaves her phone charging (how smart) and comes back to find her phone is missing. So Anna proceeds to look for Richard, finding him on the second floor wounded badly on the ground while a woman is hanging on a noose.

From there Anna realizes that it’s Cat Jones hanging up there. This part is probably one of the creepiest scenes in the book as I can hear the creaking noise of her hanging up there while Anna walks passed the body to get her phone on the other side. Things got creepier when said corpse starts to “un-hang” herself.

Cat Jones, the woman Anna is jealous of. Cat Jones, the beautiful woman who took a maternity leave for two years to raise her two daughters. Cat Jones, the wife of her cameraman. Cat Jones who is also Catherine Kelly, the girl that they bullied back in school. She changed her name and appearance. Cat is really angry as she chases Anna with a knife.

Somewhere along the chase, Anna finds her mother in her nightgown. Jack already warned her that the dementia is getting worse, and that she walks at night not knowing where she’s going. Finding her mother there of all places worries her more. They run from Cat, and somehow Mrs. Andrews runs faster than Anna. (Jack finds them somewhere here but gets shot). By the time Anna catches up, she hears Cat and Mrs. Andrews’ hazy voices. Mrs. Andrews is stabbed.

They find Zoey’s car (Jack and Priya crashed it earlier) and hope to use it to escape. Cat appears in front of the car like a scary ghost with the knife. Anna hasn’t shifted in reverse yet and hits the pedal, crushing Cat between the car and the tree. When Anna goes out of the car to check on Cat, she’s still alive (or so I remember lol) and Priya shoots Cat.

Anna hides the knife in her purse and has been hiding it until the final chapter.

There’s actually a third POV in the book; the killer’s POV, which has been misleading readers that it’s either Jack or Anna. But it’s neither of them. They just both happen to be unreliable narrators throughout the book.

The real killer is later revealed and has plans to tie all loose ends (because Priya has been suspecting the identity of the real killer). While it’s an open ending, I feel bad to see Priya go.

Wrap Up

Jack feels useless at the end lol. He goes to save Anna but ends up getting shot and Priya ends up saving Anna and Mrs. Andrews instead.

Anyways… This book is full of twists and turns left and right. My suspect throughout the book shifts every time I get a new piece of evidence.

One day I’m suspecting Anna because of her black-outs. As an alcoholic, there are scenes where she just blacks out and wakes up not remembering what happened before she loses consciousness. I never suspected Jack though, because while there are evidences that points to him, it all feels like it’s being planted by someone (like Anna). Since he’s been sleeping with Rachel (who is Anna’s ex-best friend). The other day, I’m suspecting Priya. Then Anna again. Then Catherine Kelly.

When the killer’s POV reveals who they really are, the dots starts to connect.

The first flashback I remember is Anna having a tantrum that her mother didn’t pick her up at school. When she gets home, pitying herself for walking all the way, she finds her mother hurt and beaten, lying on the ground. She never saw her father after that. It turns out, when Anna’s father threatened to hurt Anna too, Mrs. Andrews’ maternal instinct kicked in and killed him first, burying him in the garden. Thus why multiple times it’s mentioned that Mrs. Andrews doesn’t want to move away.

Mrs. Andrews never understood why Anna is so eager to leave home and why she rarely visits. She’s happy to see Anna on TV at least. And she’s happy whenever Anna calls her to rant, even if Anna thinks that her ranting falls on deaf ears.

One day, Mrs. Andrews cleans up Anna’s room where she finds Anna’s diary and a suicide letter (Anna never pushed through the suicide though and just left Blackdown). With all the details of Anna’s behavior and the things that Rachel, Helen and Zoey did, Mrs. Andrews needs to do something. So with the friendship bracelet that Anna made for her friends, Mrs. Andrews leaves them on the corpses of her victims and exposing them for who they truly are.

At first Mrs. Andrews is siding with Jack and hopes Jack and Anna goes back together, but when she discovers Jack and Rachel were sleeping together, that’s the time Mrs. Andrews starts planting evidence against Jack.

Mrs. Andrews is also the one who canceled Anna and Richard’s reservation at the hotel, wanting Anna to go back home with her. Unfortunately, we all know she doesn’t go home.

I know some say that the evidences are coincidental, meant to mislead readers from finding the true killer, but I personally think it’s done well. It’s not like the information comes at random. The pieces are already sprinkled throughout the book. Like how I processed before Anna says in canon that Catherine Kelly is Cat Jones. The mother has cancer that she discovers because Jack tells her to go to the doctor (for the dementia that she’s been faking). Maybe she’s weak, maybe she’s not.

But it’s not like her kills has any form of struggle. Most of the victims are ambushed, not giving them the actual ability to fight back. Like Helen Wang. The POV explains that the killer hid behind the curtains and slits their throat from behind. Rachel and Zoey’s doesn’t have details of a struggle either, so it’s not whether Mrs. Andrews is strong enough or not.

When Mrs. Andrews fought against Cat, Cat Jones overpowered her and even stabbed her during the fight. Because it’s a face-to-face battle unlike the previous victims.

And I also like that Mrs. Andrews isn’t killing because of some Dark Passenger controlling her (Dexter seeing his mother cut in pieces, somehow affecting his mentality and turning him into a serial killer for justice) or raised in a bad environment and kills innocent people to punish bad people (The Fourth Monkey). Mrs. Andrews is driven by the desire to protect her daughter (or avenge her daughter).

This is a nice read. Finished it in 5 days. I’ve never read a page-turner like this.

While reading the book summary, did you have guesses as to who the killer is?

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