Tag Archives: Susan Hill

#BookReview ‘A Change of Circumstance’ by @susanhillwriter #crime

Lafferton, the small town at the heart of the Simon Serrailler crime novels by Susan Hill, has until now only known small-scale drugs crime. In A Change of Circumstance, a young local man is found dead of a presumed overdose in a flat above the Chinese pharmacy in neighbouring hippy village Starley. County lines drug gangs are using local Lafferton children and people are beginning to die. This is the eleventh instalment of this excellent series. Susan HillHill’s Serrailler novels are always a delight to read, thoroughly grounded in the town of Lafferton with familiar characters and landmarks set against beautiful countryside. A reminder that crime happens in pretty places too. I wasn’t so sure about the veracity of some of the police procedure but the stories of Brookie and Olivia feel real enough, both children from fractured families pulled into crime by lies and bribes. A Change of Circumstance is a horrible portrayal of the manipulation and abuse of children but lacking in the narrative drive of earlier books. I finished it quickly but it is short – 315 pages compared with first in the series The Various Haunts of Men which is 448 pages long.
As always, a network of minor storylines add depth and colour to the main themes and Simon’s sister Cat is the beating heart of the drama. Now a GP for a private doctors’ service, she is called out to an elderly man who refuses to go into hospital. Her Yorkie terrier Wookie goes missing while son Sam is home from medical school and being secretive about his study plans. Small details that add to the real life feeling of the series, typical family life.
It’s an odd ending to the drugs case, almost as if a television drama stopped five minutes before the end. I felt slightly let down in not seeing the arrest of the guilty party, instead it is more a hint than an action scene and I missed that final feeling of justice done. The ending to Simon’s story is the change of circumstance of the title. I’m still not quite convinced but it will add a new angle to the next Serrailler story.

Read my reviews of the previous ten novels in this series:-
THE VARIOUS HAUNTS OF MEN #1SIMONSERRAILLER
THE PURE IN HEART #2SIMONSERRAILLER
THE RISK OF DARKNESS #3SIMONSERRAILLER
THE VOWS OF SILENCE #4SIMONSERRAILLER
THE SHADOWS IN THE STREET #5SIMONSERRAILLER
THE BETRAYAL OF TRUST #6SIMONSERRAILLER
A QUESTION OF IDENTITY #7SIMONSERRAILLER
THE SOUL OF DISCRETION #8SIMONSERRAILLER
THE COMFORTS OF HOME #9SIMONSERRAILLER
THE BENEFIT OF HINDSIGHT #10SIMONSERRAILLER

And also by Susan Hill, HOWARD’S END IS ON THE LANDING

If you like this, try:-
Magpie Murders’ by Anthony Horowitz #1SUSANRYELAND
The Killings at Kingfisher Hill’ by Sophie Hannah #4POIROT
The Killing Lessons’ by Saul Black

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview A CHANGE OF CIRCUMSTANCE @susanhillwriter https://wp.me/p5gEM4-5vO via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘The Benefit of Hindsight’ by @susanhillwriter #crime

The Benefit of Hindsight is the tenth book in the Simon Serrailler series by Susan Hill and she covers a lot of ground. At the book’s heart, as with its predecessors, is the town of Lafferton and the Serrailler family. Crime, when it happens, affects so many people and Hill shows this effectively as more and more people are drawn into the aftermath. Susan HillThe themes of this book are post-traumatic-stress-disorder, pre-natal premonition and post-natal depression, art robbery and private v public healthcare. Written in a list it can seem clinical, but Hill is expert at winding together the personal lives of ordinary people so that you care about them. The continuity of the Serrailler family throughout the series adds the familiarity of real family issues that are not crime-related, just ordinary family stuff. Simon is struggling with the aftermath of his injury, not physically, but with panic attacks. His sister Cat has settled into her job with private GP service Concierge and it is Cat who meets two people central to the story; pregnant mum Carrie who unshakingly believes her baby will be born damaged; and Cindy, wife of businessman and charity supporter, Declan McDermid.
When a lonely house is burgled in a professionally assessed and organised operation, Simon’s team consults art and antique experts. A second burglary goes wrong, with far-reaching consequences for Simon. The meaning of the novel’s title is key to the plot affecting brother and sister, as Cat’s patient Carrie remains convinced the doctors are unable to diagnose the hidden disease of her newborn baby. As Carrie’s sense of despair deepens, her introverted husband Colin – who she fears would rather spend his time staring at his computer screen trading money, than talking to her – paces around the room ‘like a zoo animal’. The meaning of the book’s title is an indication that Hill is interested as much in the aftermath of a crime, as in the modus operandi of the crime itself. One of the reasons I enjoy this character-led series is the lack of gratuitous violence, I don’t need to skip paragraphs of gory description or violence. That is not to say the books are not thrilling, but they are deeper explorations of the motives, fears and reactions of everyone affected by crime. Importantly, Simon Serrailler is not a perfect policeman, a perfect man; occasionally he allows his own life and emotions to affect his decision-making and must face the consequences.
Susan Hill delivers yet another Serrailler book that does what it says on the tin. Well-written and plotted, familiar but with an unexpected twist, with Simon being strong and mysterious yet vulnerable.

Read my reviews of the other novels in the series:-
THE VARIOUS HAUNTS OF MEN #1SIMONSERRAILLER
THE PURE IN HEART #2SIMONSERRAILLER
THE RISK OF DARKNESS #3SIMONSERRAILLER
THE VOWS OF SILENCE #4SIMONSERRAILLER
THE SHADOWS IN THE STREET #5SIMONSERRAILLER
THE BETRAYAL OF TRUST #6SIMONSERRAILLER
A QUESTION OF IDENTITY #7SIMONSERRAILLER
THE SOUL OF DISCRETION #8SIMONSERRAILLER
THE COMFORTS OF HOME #9SIMONSERRAILLER
A CHANGE OF CIRCUMSTANCE #11SIMONSERRAILLER

And also by Susan Hill, HOWARD’S END IS ON THE LANDING

If you like this, try:-
‘A Rising Man’ by Abir Mukherjee #1WYNDHAM&BANERJEE
Elizabeth is Missing’ by Emma Healey
The Mystery of Three Quarters’ by Sophie Hannah #3POIROT

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE BENEFIT OF HINDSIGHT by @susanhillwriter https://wp.me/p5gEM4-46A via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘Howard’s End is on the Landing’ by @susanhillwriter #memoir

I selected this book off my to-read shelf where it has sat for at least two years and, on reading the first paragraph, knew I must read on. Howard’s End is on the Landing by Susan Hill is a gem of a memoir, a year in the life of a crime novelist who decides to read only the books on her bookshelves. But this is more than a review of books – it can be dipped in and out of, the chapters are conveniently short which makes you want to read ‘just another’ – because Hill attaches a personal story to each book, each author. Susan HillHill’s first novel was published when she was only eighteen, she lives an ordinary life but mixes with some breath-stopping names. She met and/or knew TS Eliot, EM Forster, Cecil Day Lewis, Penelope Fitzgerald, Ian Fleming, Iris Murdoch, Elizabeth Bowen; it is a mirror image of my reading list at university, except for the Bond. Above everything though, the book reveals Hill as a reader who devours everything from Dickens to WG Sebald, Anthony Trollope to Anita Brookner, John le Carre to Olivia Manning. Her bookshelves contain signed copies, first editions, expensive sets, anthologies and poetry, plus shabby cheap paperbacks bought at airports and train stations, or second hand in charity shops. She writes in her books, turns down the corners of pages, discovers things used years ago as bookmarks – bills, paid and unpaid; receipts; picture postcards; shopping lists. She is, like you and I, someone who loves reading books. I recognised her description of reading library books as a child.
“Although when I was a child and growing up I could borrow books every week from the library, there was a limit on the number to be taken at any one time and so, as there was not the money to buy many books either, I found myself reading, re-reading and re-reading again. If I liked a library book I simply got to the end, turned it round and began again. It was a bit like sweets. Until I was ten, sweets were rationed. I had a quarter of a pound a week and there were various ways in which they could be made to last. A sweet a day. Buy only boiled sweets which could be sucked for a long time. Suck half and re-wrap the rest until tomorrow. Occasionally I would have such a sugar-craving that I bought something that was gobbled up in a great burst of sweetness that exploded in the mouth like a firework and then was gone. Sherbet lemons were like that. Marshmallows did not last long.” I turned my library books round and began again, too. I also read my mother’s books. That’s how, as a young teenager, I discovered Mary Stewart.
This is a delightful slim paperback which made me want to re-read many novels first read forty years ago, and to try authors I have always meant to read such as Sebald and PG Wodehouse.

Read my reviews of the Simon Serrailler crime novels by Susan Hill:-
THE VARIOUS HAUNTS OF MEN #1SIMONSERRAILLER
THE PURE IN HEART #2SIMONSERRAILLER
THE RISK OF DARKNESS #3SIMONSERRAILLER
THE VOWS OF SILENCE #4SIMONSERRAILLER
THE SHADOWS IN THE STREET #5SIMONSERRAILLER
THE BETRAYAL OF TRUST #6SIMONSERRAILLER
A QUESTION OF IDENTITY #7SIMONSERRAILLER
THE SOUL OF DISCRETION #8SIMONSERRAILLER
THE COMFORTS OF HOME #9SIMONSERRAILLER
THE BENEFIT OF HINDSIGHT #10SIMONSERRAILLER
A CHANGE OF CIRCUMSTANCE #11SIMONSERRAILLER

If you like this, try:-
‘The Story’ ed. by Victoria Hislop
‘In the Midst of Winter’ by Isabel Allende
‘White Chrysanthemum’ by Mary Lynn Bracht

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview HOWARD’S END IS ON THE LANDING by @susanhillwriter https://wp.me/p5gEM4-3t5 via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘The Comforts of Home’ by @susanhillwriter #crime

Another Simon Serrailler novel by Susan Hill? I admit to excitement at this, the ninth outing for the Lafferton detective. It is three years since the eighth novel, The Soul of Discretion, and I feared Hill wanted to write about other things and there would be no more. And now, The Comforts of Home. I saved it to read on holiday, in the same way as a child I saved my favourite chocolate bar from my Christmas Selection Box. To be enjoyed at leisure. Susan HillI admit to forgetting how The Soul of Discretion ended, so the beginning was rather a shock but also fascinating. After life-changing surgery, Serrailler goes to the remote Scottish island of Taransay to convalesce. The descriptions of this bleak but beautiful place made me want to go there. He is quickly accepted by the tight-knit community where mutual support is a necessity, where consequently everyone knows everyone else’s lives in minutiae, but where you know a death is inevitable. As temporary cop-in-charge, given the local force’s short-handedness, Serrailler uncovers a secret no one had guessed.
Serrailler’s injury beings a new layer of damage to his solitary wounded soul, he would rather get up and face the day rather than sit and talk to a counsellor. One of the secrets of this successful series is the combination of crime with the family story of Simon and his sister Cat. Cat is finding locum work unsatisfying and is looking for a new challenge. Her new marriage, to Serrailler’s boss Kieran, is happy and the only shadow on the horizon is the return from France of her irascible father Richard.
Add to this mixture a local arsonist, a mother who presses for the reopening of the investigation of her daughter’s disappearance, a convicted murderer, a rookie detective constable, and Cat’s teenage son Sam who can’t decide what he wants to do with his life, and Hill delivers her clever blend of crime, detection and domestic daily life.
Excellent. A masterclass is how to write a thriller which keeps you reading, makes you love the familiar characters, never tells you what’s happening but let’s you work it out, and poses moral dilemmas.

Read my reviews of the other novels in the series:-
THE VARIOUS HAUNTS OF MEN #1SIMONSERRAILLER
THE PURE IN HEART #2SIMONSERRAILLER
THE RISK OF DARKNESS #3SIMONSERRAILLER
THE VOWS OF SILENCE #4SIMONSERRAILLER
THE SHADOWS IN THE STREET #5SIMONSERRAILLER
THE BETRAYAL OF TRUST #6SIMONSERRAILLER
A QUESTION OF IDENTITY #7SIMONSERRAILLER
THE SOUL OF DISCRETION #8SIMONSERRAILLER
THE BENEFIT OF HINDSIGHT #10SIMONSERRAILLER
A CHANGE OF CIRCUMSTANCE #11SIMONSERRAILLER

And also by Susan Hill, HOWARD’S END IS ON THE LANDING

If you like this, try:-
Cover Her Face’ by PD James #1ADAMDALGLIESH
‘One False Move’ by Harlan Coben
Wilderness’ by Campbell Hart #3ARBOGAST

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE COMFORTS OF HOME by @susanhillwriter https://wp.me/p5gEM4-3yc via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘A Question of Identity’ by @susanhillwriter #crime

A Question of Identity by Susan Hill starts with a flashback to a trial: a man is found not guilty of three murders. Elderly, vulnerable women. Such is the public outcry that he is given a new identity. This is the seventh book in the successful Simon Serrailler detective series. Susan Hill Lafferton, ten years later. A woman is killed. Elderly, vulnerable, murdered the same way as those three women in 2002. But how can Simon Serrailler track down a villain who doesn’t exist: the man was given a new name, a new face, a new identity and was relocated. But we’re talking about murder, so surely one police department will help another?
This is an intriguing premise, all too believable. As ever with Hill’s novels, this is efficient and chilling. She introduces us to prospective villains, each seems a little questionable: but are we being unfair, reading something into signs that don’t exist, generalising, making assumptions? In parallel with the introduction of prospective villains, we are also shown prospective victims.
Whilst Simon Serrailler deals with this emotional case, his own heart is being pulled between love and guilt, and his sister Cat must manage two warring children.
An excellent tale which keeps the pages turning, an examination of the jury system. When ‘not guilty’ can be the wrong verdict, when ‘with reasonable doubt’ can condemn more vulnerable women. A disturbing take on the efficiency of our justice system.

Read my reviews of the other novels in the series:-
THE VARIOUS HAUNTS OF MEN #1SIMONSERRAILLER
THE PURE IN HEART #2SIMONSERRAILLER
THE RISK OF DARKNESS #3SIMONSERRAILLER
THE VOWS OF SILENCE #4SIMONSERRAILLER
THE SHADOWS IN THE STREET #5SIMONSERRAILLER
THE BETRAYAL OF TRUST #6SIMONSERRAILLER
THE SOUL OF DISCRETION #8SIMONSERRAILLER
THE COMFORTS OF HOME #9SIMONSERRAILLER
THE BENEFIT OF HINDSIGHT #10SIMONSERRAILLER
A CHANGE OF CIRCUMSTANCE #11SIMONSERRAILLER

And also by Susan Hill, HOWARD’S END IS ON THE LANDING

If you like this, try:-
No Time for Goodbye’ by Linwood Barclay
The Art of the Imperfect’ by Kate Evans #1SCARBOROUGHMYSTERIES
‘A Taste for Death’ by PD James #7ADAMDALGLIESH

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview A QUESTION OF IDENTITY by @susanhillwriter via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1CR

#BookReview ‘The Betrayal of Trust’ by @susanhillwriter #crime

The trust betrayed in The Betrayal of Trust by Susan Hill is marital, parent/child, doctor/patient, in a thought-provoking drama about the bonds between us – personal and professional – and the responsibilities we bear. Exploitation, dominance and manipulation should not belong in the patient/carer sphere, but here in the sixth book of her Simon Serrailler series, Hill examines the difficult zone of terminal illness. Susan Hill

Heavy rains and floods reveal first one skeleton, then another. The first is identified, the second is a mystery. Serrailler must investigate, working almost on his own as police cutbacks see drug busts getting more staff than his investigative team. And then at what promises to be a dull evening, an official dinner at which he wears his police hat, he falls instantly in love: never a convenient time, for all sorts of reasons. In the midst of love at first sight we see a different Serrailler, not in control of the situation, distracted, wracked by longing.
This is the sixth in the series, but unlike other crime series you can read these in or out of order. Of course there are references to long-running storylines – all related to the Serrailler family – which may pass you by if you read them out of order, but that will not affect your enjoyment of the story. Susan Hill crafts her book well, as both stand-alone detective story, and long-term story arcs. But if you can, read from the beginning.

Read my reviews of the other novels in the series:-
THE VARIOUS HAUNTS OF MEN #1SIMONSERRAILLER
THE PURE IN HEART #2SIMONSERRAILLER
THE RISK OF DARKNESS #3SIMONSERRAILLER
THE VOWS OF SILENCE #4SIMONSERRAILLER
THE SHADOWS IN THE STREET #5SIMONSERRAILLER
A QUESTION OF IDENTITY #7SIMONSERRAILLER
THE SOUL OF DISCRETION #8SIMONSERRAILLER
THE COMFORTS OF HOME #9SIMONSERRAILLER
THE BENEFIT OF HINDSIGHT #10SIMONSERRAILLER
A CHANGE OF CIRCUMSTANCE #11SIMONSERRAILLER

And also by Susan Hill, HOWARD’S END IS ON THE LANDING

If you like this, try:-
‘The Vanished Bride’ by Bella Ellis #1BRONTEMYSTERIES
‘The Killing Lessons’ by Saul Black
‘Pop Goes the Weasel’ by MJ Arlidge #2HELENGRACE

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE BETRAYAL OF TRUST by @susanhillwriter http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1CN via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘The Shadows in the Street’ by @susanhillwriter #crime

After a spell of reading historical books, I needed a comfort read, something familiar. A pageturner, but well-written. So I picked up The Shadows in the Street, fifth in the Simon Serrailler detective series by Susan Hill. And I tweeted about it. Susan Hill replied with the question: “Comfort?!!” Susan HillI know what she means; a crime thriller should not be comfortable reading. I replied: “Okay, discomfort with familiar characters.” I finished the book that same day, but sat back and considered what made me feel comfortable with this series of books. Firstly, the quality of the writing. Hill’s detective Serrailler is a literary gem, he is distinctive but believable, seems ordinary but is extraordinary. And he is surrounded by a close-knit family whose stories I also follow from book to book. Hill is particularly good at creating mood – a skill also used in her ghost stories – and her description of place is minimal but so effective. For example, “It was a damp, mild October night with a thin mist drifting away over the black water of the canal like a spirit departing a dead body. The air smelled green.” And there is depth to her writing, literary and cultural references there for you to delight in recognising but which don’t matter if you don’t get them.
In Lafferton, two prostitutes are murdered. Simon Serrailler is on sabbatical leave on a remote Scottish island. A librarian takes food parcels to the prostitutes, one of whom is beaten up by her boyfriend. As usual with Hill’s books, each new chapter makes you want to devour the book in one sitting as she lays out first one possibility then another. Of course nothing is as it first seems.

Read my reviews of the other novels in the series:-
THE VARIOUS HAUNTS OF MEN #1SIMONSERRAILLER
THE PURE IN HEART #2SIMONSERRAILLER
THE RISK OF DARKNESS #3SIMONSERRAILLER
THE VOWS OF SILENCE #4SIMONSERRAILLER
THE BETRAYAL OF TRUST #6SIMONSERRAILLER
A QUESTION OF IDENTITY #7SIMONSERRAILLER
THE SOUL OF DISCRETION #8SIMONSERRAILLER
THE COMFORTS OF HOME #9SIMONSERRAILLER
THE BENEFIT OF HINDSIGHT #10SIMONSERRAILLER
A CHANGE OF CIRCUMSTANCE #11SIMONSERRAILLER

And also by Susan Hill, HOWARD’S END IS ON THE LANDING

If you like this, try:-
‘The Farm’ by Tom Rob Smith
‘Or the Bull Kills You’ by Jason Webster #1MAXCAMARA
‘Last Light’ by Alex Scarrow #1LASTLIGHT

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE SHADOWS IN THE STREET by @susanhillwriter http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1z1 via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘The Vows of Silence’ by @susanhillwriter #crime

Young women are being shot, but by the same person? In The Vows of Silence by Susan Hill, the first killer uses a rifle and shoots from distance, the other shoots face-to-face. Different modus operandi, different killer? Susan HillOne serial killer in a small town is rare, two serial killers in a small town at the same time is beyond apprehension. The thing that sets Susan Hill’s crime novels apart from the rest, for me, is the way she deals with the violence. It is there in the storyline but not on the page, we feel it through the reaction of Detective Chief Superintendent Simon Serrailler. Susan Hill writes page-turning crime novels about ordinary people, people we can identify with, but people that extraordinary things happen to.
Cathedral town Lafferton is the setting, and Prince Charles and Camilla are due to attend the wedding of the Lord Lieutenant’s daughter, not a great idea when a shooter is on the loose. A shooter who no-one sees, who plans meticulously, and who leaves no clues behind. As women keep being killed, Serrailler’s brother-in-law is diagnosed with cancer and his widowed father suddenly has a girlfriend. Elsewhere in Lafferton, widow Helen meets widower Phil, but her newly-religious son Tom disapproves. Quite how much he disapproves, Helen doesn’t appreciate. As the murders continue, the police focus on the forthcoming high profile wedding and the town’s Jug Fair. Both are ideal settings for another shooting.
This was the first of the Simon Serrailler books that I read, and I was immediately hooked in the way that finding a new detective series hooks you. I re-read it recently in one sitting.

Read my reviews of the other novels in the series:-
THE VARIOUS HAUNTS OF MEN #1SIMONSERRAILLER
THE PURE IN HEART #2SIMONSERRAILLER
THE RISK OF DARKNESS #3SIMONSERRAILLER
THE SHADOWS IN THE STREET #5SIMONSERRAILLER
THE BETRAYAL OF TRUST #6SIMONSERRAILLER
A QUESTION OF IDENTITY #7SIMONSERRAILLER
THE SOUL OF DISCRETION #8SIMONSERRAILLER
THE COMFORTS OF HOME #9SIMONSERRAILLER
THE BENEFIT OF HINDSIGHT #10SIMONSERRAILLER
A CHANGE OF CIRCUMSTANCE #11SIMONSERRAILLER

And also by Susan Hill, HOWARD’S END IS ON THE LANDING

If you like this, try:-
‘Death at the Sign of the Rook’ by Kate Atkinson #6JACKSONBRODIE
‘Magpie Murders’ by Anthony Horowitz #1SUSANRYELAND
‘Dead Simple’ by Peter James

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE VOWS OF SILENCE by @susanhillwriter http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1dJ via @SandraDanby 

#BookReview ‘The Risk of Darkness’ by @susanhillwriter #crime

The Risk of Darkness by Susan Hill is a chilling book with two key storylines. One is continued from the previous book in Simon Serrailler series in which children are disappearing. The second storyline explores the line where grief and anger descends into madness, where we can be threatened in our homes, in the streets which are familiar beneath our feet, and will never feel safe again. Susan HillDetective Chief Inspector Simon Serrailler, created by crime author Susan Hill, is called to Yorkshire where a child has been abducted. Is it the same modus operandi, is it the same kidnapper? Simon is also squabbling with his sister Cat about how he treats his girlfriends. She thinks he isolates himself too much, he likes women but doesn’t want them to get too close. All the regular day-to-day life of the Serrailler family continues from the previous two books, providing a warm framework of family and community, into which barges the threat of violence. Cat, with a newborn baby, struggles to balance baby caring and the demands of a GP. She feels responsible for her patients, the ordinary people of Lafferton.
Meanwhile, we get glimpses into the lives of these ordinary people in their homes. Are they going to be victims or criminals? Susan Hill blends invisibly the fear factor of crime fiction and the security blanket of familiar family lives, daily routine, eating breakfast, squabbling with each other, going to work. I turn the page, not knowing what is going to happen next, wanting to know but not wanting it to happen. She is a master of her craft.

Read my reviews of the other novels in the series:-
THE VARIOUS HAUNTS OF MEN #1SIMONSERRAILLER
THE PURE IN HEART #2SIMONSERRAILLER
THE VOWS OF SILENCE #4SIMONSERRAILLER
THE SHADOWS IN THE STREET #5SIMONSERRAILLER
THE BETRAYAL OF TRUST #6SIMONSERRAILLER
A QUESTION OF IDENTITY #7SIMONSERRAILLER
THE SOUL OF DISCRETION #8SIMONSERRAILLER
THE COMFORTS OF HOME #9SIMONSERRAILLER
THE BENEFIT OF HINDSIGHT #10SIMONSERRAILLER
A CHANGE OF CIRCUMSTANCE #11SIMONSERRAILLER

And also by Susan Hill, HOWARD’S END IS ON THE LANDING

If you like this, try:-
‘The Private Patient’ by PD James #14ADAMDALGLIESH
‘The Secrets of Gaslight Lane’ by MRC Kasasian #4GOWERDETECTIVE
‘Agatha Raisin and the Murderous Marriage’ by MC Beaton #5AGATHARAISIN

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE RISK OF DARKNESS by @susanhillwriter http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1qT via @SandraDanby 

#BookReview ‘The Pure in Heart’ by @susanhillwriter #crime

The nature of death, grieving and hope are examined in The Pure in Heart, the second Simon Serrailler novel by Susan Hill. To give these books a label – thriller, crime novel, detective novel – is to underplay the complexity of the subject. It is an examination of human nature. Susan HillA nine-year boy waits by the garden gate for his lift to school, but is never seen again. A severely handicapped young woman dies. Both families struggle with grief, reacting in different ways, ways which cause tension within the family. And involved in the mix is a local man, an ex-con newly released from prison, struggling to stay straight, struggling with the prejudices of his family. Reading this book will make you examine your own prejudices, your attitude to death and dying, it will make you as ‘what would I do if…’
The small cathedral town of Lafferton is like an extra character in Susan Hill’s Serrailler novels. Surrounded by wooden hills and deep ravines, it is at once brooding and at the same time reassuring.

Read my reviews of the other novels in the series:-
THE VARIOUS HAUNTS OF MEN #1SIMONSERRAILLER
THE RISK OF DARKNESS #3SIMONSERRAILLER
THE VOWS OF SILENCE #4SIMONSERRAILLER
THE SHADOWS IN THE STREET #5SIMONSERRAILLER
THE BETRAYAL OF TRUST #6SIMONSERRAILLER
A QUESTION OF IDENTITY #7SIMONSERRAILLER
THE SOUL OF DISCRETION #8SIMONSERRAILLER
THE COMFORTS OF HOME #9SIMONSERRAILLER
THE BENEFIT OF HINDSIGHT #10SIMONSERRAILLER
A CHANGE OF CIRCUMSTANCE #11SIMONSERRAILLER

And also by Susan Hill, HOWARD’S END IS ON THE LANDING

If you like this, try:-
‘The Truth Will Out’ by Jane Isaac
‘No Other Darkness’ by Sarah Hilary #2MARNIEROME
‘A Fatal Crossing’ by Tom Hindle

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE PURE IN HEART by @susanhillwriter http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1oE via @SandraDanby