My Readers Guide to Imperfect Women by Araminta Hall includes my notes on this twisty friendship story in which one of a trio of friends ends up dead. Who did it and why? Imperfect Women is now streaming on Apple TV!
Readers Guide to Imperfect Women
Table of Contents
Character List
Plot Summary
Book vs Apple TV series!
Book Club Discussion Questions and Book vs Movie breakdown – download here!
Character List
The three friends:
- Eleanor “Ellie” Meakins
- Nancy Hennessy: French translator
- Mary Smithson:
- Robert: Nancy‘s husband
- Zara: Nancy‘s daughter
- “David:” Nancy’s lover
- Pearl: Nancy‘s mother
- Howard: Mary’s husband
- Maisie: Mary’s daughter
- Mimi: Mary’s daughter
- Marcus: Mary’s son
- Davide Boyette: French author
- Wendy Harper: his wife
- Irena: Eleanor’s neighbor
- DS Daniels
- DCI Farrelly
CAST:
- Eleanor: Kerry Washington
- Nancy: Kate Mara
- Mary: Elisabeth Moss
- Robert: Joel Kinnaman
- Howard: Corey Stohl
Plot Summary for Imperfect Women
ELEANOR POV
Eleanor is asleep when Robert, her close friend Nancy’s husband, phones to say Nancy never came home after the two women had dinner the night before.
At Nancy and Robert’s house, he asks her if his wife was having an affair. Eleanor admits it, but says Nancy was trying to end things.
Two policeman arrive to announce that the body of a woman has been found and they believe it is Nancy. Eleanor and Robert go to ID the body.
DS Daniels questions Eleanor, who says Nancy left the dinner before she did, heading to meet her lover.
Eleanor goes to Mary’s house, breaks the news, and fills Mary about the affair.
Robert thinks the police consider him a suspect. He thought Nancy was having an affair and he doesn’t have an alibi.
About 10 days later, a man is arrested: French author, Davide Boyette. But he insists he wasn’t having an affair with Nancy and barely knew her.
In the end, there’s not enough evidence to arrest him. Nancy’s phone records had texts from her mystery lover, but her used a burner phone. There was no physical evidence to connect the attack to either Robert or Davide.
Robert invites Eleanor to the opera. He asks more questions about the affair. He cries, she comforts him, and they sleep together.
Eleanor goes to visit Mary, who guesses that Eleanor is sleeping with Robert. Mary’s husband is an academic who also sleeps with his students.
Robert and Eleanor go away for the weekend to Robert‘s country house. Sarah, the daughter of Eleanor’s elderly neighbor Irina, calls and says she can’t reach her mom. Eleanor lies and says she saw Irina recently.
When Robert goes to have lunch with a friend, Elenor looks around the house and finds an apologetic note from Nancy to Robert. She also finds letters from Nancy’s lover in Robert’s desk. So Robert definitely knew about the affair.
When Eleanor gets back to London Irena is dead. Mary’s husband is also very ill.
Eleanor contacts Davide, the author, who agrees to meet with her. He insists that he barely knew Eleanor.
Robert and Nancy agree that it’s better if they end their romantic relationship.
NANCY POV
Nancy is having an argument on the phone with her lover. She tells him that she and Robert are moving to Sussex. But she wants to see him one last time. She texts him to meet her tomorrow at 10 PM, right after her dinner with Eleanor.
The affair started at a publishing party. There, she ran into Howard, Nancy’s husband. He pretends his name is David and they just met and she pretends her name is Louise.
Nancy fears Robert’s anger in general. He found the letters from her lover a month ago. Meanwhile, Howard is angry that Nancy wants to end things.
At the dinner, Nancy tells Eleanor she’s going to meet her lover to end it once and for all.
As Nancy gets into a taxi at the restaurant to go meet her lover, she swears she might have seen Robert. How is there standing on a bench? He reaches for her, but someone else appears out of the darkness.
MARY POV
Mary gets a call from Eleanor who’s hysterical because she just broke up with Robert. She’s beginning to think that Robert might have killed Nancy.
Mary is looking for insurance documents. She finds a brown envelope with ticket stubs, a lock of hair, a letter and a pornographic picture of Nancy.
Nancy’s letter asks David to leave her alone.
Mary remembers that when she was 28, she first started to sleep with Howard, who was 40 and married to a woman named Penny.
Eleanor arrives and tells Mary that Robert knew about Nancy’s affair. Eleanor asked if she should tell the police and Mary says no.
In the past, Mary tells Howard that she is pregnant. It takes forever for him to leave Penny, after which Penny tries to take her own life.
Mary is certain that Howard killed Nancy. Marcus, Mary’s troubled son, has been volunteering with Eleanor.
Mary tries to figure out ways to end Howard’s life. Smother him with a pillow? She thinks an overdose is the best.
Robert invites everyone to their annual bonfire night party. Mary goes to the bathroom and see photo of Nancy and Zara. This takes her back to the summer before last, when Marcus told her he saw Howard kissing another woman. She shrugged him off at that time. But that was around the time her son Marcus started to go off the rails.
Mary now apologizes to Marcus. When he mentioned the other woman his father was kissing, she didn’t realize at the time it was Nancy.
Marcus says he knows what happened to Nancy: he wanted to get rid of his father, to make him leave the family.
Marcus followed his father to the river. Nancy was there and Marcus slapped her face. Howard thought Marcus was attacking Nancy so he swung out hard at Marcus . Nancy stepped in front of him and got hit on the jaw.
Marcus and Howard started brawling and Nancy tried to get in the middle of it and pull Marcus off his father. Marcus threw Nancy off him. She lost her balance, fell, and hit her head.
Mary tells Marcus it’s not his fault and she’ll make sure he doesn’t get punished.
Mary burns everything in the brown envelope and washes the ashes down the drain. Then she takes the pills to Howard and tells him she knows what he did to Marcus and Nancy and her.
He says “not Marcus.”
He agrees to take all the pills. The next morning he’s dead. She tells Marcus that Howard took his own life and he seems to believe her.
MY QUESTIONS ABOUT THE BOOK:
In Imperfect Woman, what does “not Marcus” mean?
Is Marcus telling the truth? Or was Howard trying to protect his son?
Will this case remain unsolved?
I guess Mary didn’t want to frame Howard because that would affect her daughters?
Imperfect Women: Book Club Questions and Book vs Movie Comparison
Book Club Discussion Questions and Book vs Movie Comparison!
Ha! I came here to see if you had an idea about “not Marcus.” Maybe he really was just confused…?
Arrrgh! Are you watching the show too? Not sure if they will go with that weird ending….
I’ve watched the first episode and will watch the rest this week, I think.
After letting the book sink in, it seems awfully strange that Howard became nearly catatonic immediately after the event.
I was worried that the whole show was going to be Eleanor POV but the last episode I watched (3?) switched to Nancy, thankfully. I like how the book is structured and was hoping the show would do the same.