The Final Hours Of Muriel Hinchcliffe M. B. E. by Claire Parkin (Audiobook)

 

Ruth and Muriel, friends for 76 years, live together. One evening Muriel predicts she will be dead in exactly 72 hours, sending Ruth's life spiraling out of control.

The Final Hours Of Muriel Hinchcliffe M. B. E. by Claire Parkin had me gripped, the more I listened to this tale of elderly friends living together, the more I wanted to know. The twists and turns of the story were narrated wonderfully by Jenny Funnell, who was able to give voice to two distinctly different characters. 

At the beginning of the book, we meet the elderly pair of friends as Muriel makes her terrifying prediction. Ruth isn't particularly bothered by this as she's used to Muriel and her overly dramatic ways. What's different this time is how specific Muriel is about the time of her death. As the story progresses we then learn about the intertwined lives of the pair.

Born fifteen seconds apart, their mothers bonded on the labour ward. When the friends say they've known each other all their lives they mean it. Pretty Muriel needs constant affirmation in her life, as a child she gets much of this from Ruth's mother. You can feel the resentment festering from an early age as plain Ruth is denied her mother's affection. This animosity continues throughout their lives and is at its strongest now. Ruth is entirely reliant on Muriel for somewhere to live since her career as a journalist had many ups and downs.

From the outset, you are sympathetic towards Ruth. It would appear that Ruth needs Muriel just as much as Muriel needs Ruth. What slowly becomes apparent is that Ruth is a classic unreliable narrator. The more we learn about Ruth's life, the more we realise she has been responsible for much of her own downfall. Mental health plays a major part in the story and there were times I was convinced that Ruth's mental health was central to the story; was she living with dementia? There were even times when I was convinced Ruth and Muriel were different personalities of the same individual.

I loved the way the minutiae of life and the house were described. The once genteel area of London that is now on the up, with neighbours describing the shed as a summerhouse and extensions as orangeries. I could vividly imagine the cluttered house, frozen in time, that Muriel and Ruth lived in.

I was honestly filled with sadness when I finished this book. Partly because it was finished and partly because of the way it ended. A story of two lives filled with jealousy, manipulation and resentment. Two women whose lives would have been vastly different if they had never known each other, but through chance happened to be born fifteen seconds apart on the same ward.

The Final Hours Of Muriel Hinchcliffe M. B. E. by Claire Parkin will be published on 21st March 2024 in hardback, ebook and audio format. My thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan UK Audio for a review copy.