THE PERFECT COUPLE by Elin Hilderbrand

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The Perfect Couple is a light, fun and entertaining beach read. While it is billed as a murder mystery, I found it light on the mystery element but after all, it is intended as a book for the beach! The couple that appears to be perfect, Celeste and Benji, are about to be married at his parents’ palatial Nantucket home. But on the morning of the wedding, Celeste’s best friend, who is also the maid of honor, is found floating in the water at the beach in the backyard, where the reception is to be held.  The rest of the book deals with finding out the who in whodunit.

As we go on the journey, we learn that most of the people interviewed by the police, as well as the deceased, has a big secret. It sure is a lot of secrets. For me, learning these secrets was the most intriguing aspect of the book rather than the mystery. As soon as one secret is revealed, we learn of another one.

The characters are sufficiently developed for the reader to understand their motivations.  The story’s pacing was fine and it is a fairly fast read. Just like the one other Hilderbrand book I have read, it feels like you have visited Nantucket for a few summer days when you read this book.  Hilderbrand excels at defining and exploring the setting of Nantucket and perhaps that is because she lives there.  Don’t they say, write about what you know?

The chapters’ titles are dates and the narrative, as it is told in these pages, is not linear. On a few occasions, I found myself looking back at the table of contents to see where a particular chapter fit in the chronology. But this minor issue was not enough to detract at all from my enjoyment of the book.

There are a few particularly amusing moments in The Perfect Couple. About one-fourth of the way in, the groom’s mother Greer, laments that her 21st book has been found to be unacceptable by her editor’s new boss. I couldn’t help but think this relates to The Perfect Couple but you will have to read it to find out:

If she is very honest with herself, she will admit that the novel did feel a bit thin on plot, a bit slapdash, a bit “phoned in,” as it were. The key to a good whodunit is a murderer who is hiding in plain sight. Her character with the newly acquired stutter is, perhaps, underdeveloped.