A Review By Keith Smith

A woman vanishes in the fog up on ‘the Hill’, an area locally known for its tranquility and peace. The police are not alarmed; people usually disappear for their own reasons. But when a young girl, an old man and even a dog disappear no one can deny that something untoward is happening in this quiet cathedral town.

Young policewoman Freya Graffham is assigned to the case, she’s new to the job, compassionate, inquisitive, dedicated and needs to know – perhaps too much. She and the enigmatic detective Chief Inspector Simon Serrailler have the task of unraveling the mystery behind this gruesome sequence of events.

This is the very first of a now long sequence of Serailler novels. And it was my first. I enjoyed it. A good solid English crime novel of the traditional kind. Not full of blood and gore, but everyday people doing everyday things, with a dark understream. The characters were traditionally drawn too, a strength and a weakness. Sometimes mere caricatures, at others real people whom we know and love. 

The setting and plot line are very reminiscent of a Morse, so if you enjoy nefarious goings-on in cerebral settings you will enjoy this.

But what I liked most of all, really liked, was that at the end there was no neat closure with everything tied up and just a potential romance to keep us going to the next installment ( as in so many crime novels). No, there was death and tragedy, and we are bludgeoned out of our cosy understanding of how things will turn out. A brave decision by the writer, and a great one. Recommended.