What an amorphous book this is! It's structured like a traditional country house mystery: the party, the limited number of suspects all of whom have a motive to murder, the bizarre death... only the 'victim' is a famous Hollywood director, and the time is Harvey Weinstein-now. And then introduced into this scenario is Persephone, an octopus who leaves her aquarium at night and might even be a suspect in the murder...

Little has put this together with with lots of smarts: the 1st person narrative weaves together the past and post-death present, gradually revealing the vile life of the victim. Some of his actions are breathtaking (no spoilers but what he does to his ex-wife on the movie-set...), and the shifting perspective reveals fractures in the narrator's tale that only make sense at the end.

But the octopus? There's a good idea here of Persephone as the abducted and raped goddess trapped in the underworld; and also the octopus as a mother (who knew?) but while these ideas resonate thematically, the book would stand perfectly fine without Persephone. Though it would be a sacrifice of some nicely weird quirkiness!
3.5 stars for not quite tying the whole thing together, rounded up to 4.

DNF

This novel tries hard to make its scenes, dialogues, and characters seem as unpleasant as possible. A scene in which the narrator enters her ex-husband's home drags on, filled with her over the top unease (from the sound of her shoes on the floor to the unsettling catering staff). A meal is described in such an exaggerated manner, so that act of eating acquires grotesque overtones.
Maybe I could have finished this book if the formatting hadn't been so bad (there is no clear separation between segments that occurred in the past and the ones in the present) or if the characters hadn't been such banal caricatures.
If you enjoyed the overly unpleasant Blood Orange by Harriet Tyce you might find The Octopus to be far more entertaining than I did.

This is a very unusual mystery. Our central character is Elspeth Bryant Bell, ex-actress, mother to Lillie, nineteen, and ex-wife of British movie director, Richard. She is surprised to be invited to Richard’s fiftieth birthday party and is expecting a typically large, Hollywood event. Instead, she finds a handful of guests and Lillie, who should be attending, missing. Among the guests are Anton ‘Honey’ Carlisle, Richard’s current partner, Thomas ‘Tommo’ Coates, Richard’s old school friend, Jerry Debrowski, his manager, Miguel Montana, his ‘fat cat’ producer, Keiko Nakamura, cinematographer, his current leading lady, Sabine Semi and young actor, Charles Pace.

Despite her misgivings, Elspeth is impressed by the house, ‘Sedgwick,’ which is dominated by the huge aquarium, inhabited by Richard’s octopus, Persephone. Initially, she thinks of leaving, but, somehow, she stays and wakes in the morning to find Richard dead and all of the guests suspects.

This novel weaves backwards and forwards through time and includes the many interviews that Elspeth has with the police, as she is forced to stay in L.A. and negotiate her tricky relationship with her daughter. This is a really interesting literary mystery, with a good setting and characters. For, although Richard had stated that the guests were his nearest, and closest, friends, it seems that all the guests have reasons to dislike him and all of them are harbouring secrets. Quite unique and well written, I received a copy of this book from the publisher, via NetGalley, for review.

I loved the idea of this book; a Hollywood party, a dead body, a handful of suspects and a watchful octopus. It unfortunately fell down in the execution. The 'now and then' method of story telling is tried and tested but in this case trips up because there is no discernible difference between the timescales in the text formatting. In many cases I was halfway through a paragraph before I realised that the story had swapped time frames.

The octopus thread was intriguing and I was wondering if the octopus had an ethical viewpoint on the scene that was playing out in front of it and had decided to take action. However the author seemed to lose interest in that angle and the octopus was put to one side until the end when it gets a strange cameo in the wrapping up of the tale.

This book is so nearly there. The story is sound but needs better formatting and more editorial guidance to make it successful.

This novel initially seems like a thriller, a classic country house mystery moved to an LA mansion, but it’s more than that, and gives few answers. It’s split into three parts, each flicking between the present day of Richard’s ex wife and daughter coming to terms with his death and past scenes of their relationship and the party where he dies. I much preferred part two because although the scenes cut much more dramatically between Richard’s 40th birthday party in the past and his wake in the present, they followed a clearer and more linear timeline, with lots of information about where in time we as readers were. In contrast, part one in particular was very hard to follow where and when we were finding the characters, particularly as we don’t know as much about them at that point. The novel deals with Weinstein-esque concerns around Hollywood so was interesting from that perspective but I’m not sure that I would have bothered to struggle through part one if I wasn’t now stuck at home doing social distancing with little else to do.

A whodunit with a classic structure that ups the ante by adding the titular animal to the cast of suspects, The Octopus challenges the reader to guess the identity of a film director’s murderer. Richard, said director, was a bad man, but somehow all the guests to his 50th birthday party sing his praises. Among them, Elspeth, his ex-wife, who only attended because her daughter promised to be there. When Richard turns up dead, she examines the possible motives of the suspects. Was it the shady first-time actor? The stunning French actress? His right-hand woman, his male lover or one of his friends? Or, could it be Persephone, Richard’s beautiful octopus? The way he died can’t rule it out. Elspeth is the narrator here, and she turns out to be not only unreliable, but flat out lying on some things. I liked Elspeth throughout, even if she’s very flawed. At first, I didn’t care for her daughter, but I liked the way she evolves during the investigation. The plot was a little too long for my taste, but I still enjoyed trying to unravel the mystery, and was surprised by the outcome.
I chose to read this book and all opinions in this review are my own and completely unbiased. Thank you, NetGalley/ Hodder & Stoughton!

A refreshingly different murder investigation; a whole room of suspects plus an octopus. This novel sneered at the Hollywood film industry lifestyle and the corruption, back-stabbing and falseness that it embraces. Many of the characters were difficult to like and all had flaws. I enjoyed learning about the relationships both past and present and although some parts seemed unrealistic it was easy to suspend disbelief long enough to become drawn in.

This was an extremely unusual read, something I don’t get the chance to say often as I read a lot of books.

The first thing to say is that it took me some time to get into because of the strange conceit if switching timelines between paragraphs. I was reading a galley edition and would really recommend that some sort of divider be used to help the reader eg
**************
That said, after a while I did get used to it but was one of the reasons I docked a star.

The novel is told from the POV of Elspeth, a former actress and opens with her being quickly thrust into an intensely awful/awkward social situation. It is her ex-husband Richard’s 50th birthday party and she/we are disoriented and wrong-footed. Through juxtaposed segments of timelines we eventually discover the truth about what happened at the party, Richard and Elspeth’s marriage and the power others can have over us, for good or ill.

The octopus of the title, is at once a metaphor for Elspeth, a trapped mother who is willing to sacrifice herself for her daughter; Persephone, captive goddess of the Underworld; and an actual creature, kept captive, struggling to be free.

An unusual read, not totally successful but original and enjoyable.

With thanks to Netgalley Hodder & Stoughton for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book had a lot of potential story strands but unfortunately didn't hold my attention very well. I was always waiting for some kind of resolution and even by the last page it never came, so I was left feeling a bit dissatisfied. The past and present shifted too fluidly to be understood and I struggled to keep up with who was doing what and when, not to mention motive for any of it. I also felt the octopus was an odd conceit only to later fall flat as an elaborate MacGuffin.

Wasn't quite sure what to make of this book at first but loved it because of its cover. It was a really interesting whodunnit/thriller - kind of like a Secret History vibe with unlikeable characters, all with a reason to kill....do give this a read, you'll never visit an aquarium in the same way again....

The Octopus is a sort of whodunit. It is a Hollywood take on the classic country house murder mystery. Eight people are invited to the 50th birthday party of Richard, a film director. Richard looms large over all of their lives, as personified by his pet Octopus, Persephone. He sort of slithers around all of them, in a very unwelcome and unpleasant way. In fact, this is not an ordinary birthday party, but a show of power.
In the morning, Richard is dead, and everyone who was at the party has a motive. The story centres around his ex-wife Elspeth, who Richard has cruelly maligned. She explores the hold Richard had over her, and everyone else at the party. Four stars.

The story on its own was not bad, but I really didn’t care for the lack of chapters. I also agree with another reviewer who suggested “now” and “then” headers would have been helpful as I did not care for the back and forth without much indication. Thank you netgalley and publisher for this arc in exchange of an honest review.

I am very sorry but I can't finish this book. It is about a central character in LA in the film industry who seems to think that her ex husband was murdered by an octopus!. To me it feels really boring with similar conversations with a small number of characters or suspects and some police interviews. I have struggled through 50%.

The story is presented with some sections in the present but many as flashbacks to the party and further back in time to describe things that happened for these characters. It may have been my download but there was no indication what time line was operating and as the conversations were so similar it was difficult work it out.

Honestly, I don’t get the octopus obsession. Am I missing a metaphor? Is the octopus really the murderer? Maybe it went over my head.

There was a lot that seemed kind of random.

My biggest gripe maybe is something that was due to it being an advanced copy (but I factored it out of my rating). There was no indication when the narrative was switching from past to present. It was really, really annoying. Maybe it was done for effect and supposed to be disorienting and well, if that’s the case it worked and I was not a fan.

Seven guests at a private function each have their personal issue with the organiser who in the morning turns up dead, murdered? The actions of the seven suspects are told in think back by the December's ex wife, one of the main suspects.

First of all, I have to start this review by saying that beware of funny formatting. There are no chapters just 'sections' and these are long.. It's some sort of literary experiment probably but i personally hate these experiements but wanted to know more abou the plot and the octopus so I read on.

Richard lives the high life in LA but when he has a party at his mansion, he ends up dead. There aren't that manyu guests at his place but the complicated pasts of those who are, are definitely going to be a factor in his murder. These people have complicated pasts and then some. There aren't any flashbacks to life now and life before and after the party but the plot flows around like an orange down a river so you never really get a grip on where it's going or which POV this is, but then the orange gets stuck and oh you're off again but is it the same POV?

This format and the POV really slowed down my reading and put a shadow on my enjoyment of the book.. I did start to enjoy the book more when I got the hang of it so to speak and found the party and its guests very intriguing. The main character Richard turns out to have been quite the Hollywood hotshot who wasn't liked at all. Did this remind me of someone in the news? A bit.

Although my enjoyment of the book improved, the story started to annoy me slightly. It was strange and a reading experience I was not totally comfortable with. The octopus saved the day although I'm not sure this should be the redeeming feature of any novel really.

Elle is at her ex-husband, Richards 50th birthday celebration. Odd though there are only nine people total.
Richard is a hot shot movie producer. The people at his party have all worked or known him in one capacity or another. Elle was an actress that had worked for him.
The only reason Elle decided to attend the part was because her daughter was supposed to accompany her. So far she hasn't seen her daughter anywhere.
The party is raucous and wild and soon battle stories are being shared.
The hard thing for Elle to see is Richard drinking and doing drugs. That had been a condition of their marriage. No drinking or drug use or she would leave and take their daughter. She ended up leaving. After Richard had proven he could stay drug free and sober, then she had allowed visitation with their daughter. All that is history.
Now that their daughter is grown he thi is he can do whatever he wants.
Doing whatever he wants can cost him. And with these particular guests it would be bett6for him to be on his guard.
Intriguing look at the haves and have nots. And how much is really a need.

There are no chapters in this book - the story switches from past to present without warning which makes the story difficult to follow. The story is not really that complex - a rich film producer in LA throws a bizarre party and ends up dead. The narrator is his ex-wife who tries to protect their daughter by insisting that there was nothing wrong with their marriage. There is an octopus in a tank at his home. Does the octopus have anything to do with the death? It is not a pleasant tale and all of the characters are shallow and forgettable. Really not worth reading.

After starting The Octopus, I realized that this book was going to be more than the description implied. I am mostly a mystery and thriller genre reader, and what they often have in common are short chapters with cliffhanger endings. That isn't the case here. Having finished the first twenty pages because I didn't understand the formatting, I was lost.
To assist my fellow readers, let me say first that this book is much more than a murder mystery. Second, there are no chapters, only Part 1,2, and 3. Third, the story is told from Richard's ex-wife's POV. Fourth, the plot focuses on Richard's party, Elspeth's relationship with her ex-husband, and her life in the aftermath of the murder. The plot moves between these timelines, and that is what threw me off when I started.No ten years ago, or now, or the night of the party chapters.
Once I was certain it wasn't a DRC formatting issue, I knew I couldn't treat this as a beach read, but rather needed to be fully invested in the pages. So I started again, and honestly, the various timelines were not hard to follow. Suddenly, I was intrigued, and was back to my furiously flipping pages self!
Elspeth has been through quite a bit at Richard's hands, as have all the other guests at his birthday party. Anyone of them had a motive and the opportunity to kill Richard. As the story progressed, we learn more about the suspects and their interactions with Richard and it became painfully clear that his use of his power and privilege was extreme.
I realize I am being vague, but to say much more would be giving important plot points away! Read this knowing that there is much going on under the surface and watch this shocking story unfold.
I would be remiss if I didn't mention Persephone, Richard's octopus who was one of my favorite characters!

A very complex,complicated story.Too slow,too weird,couldn't got into it. Lots of selfish characters without many redeeming features.