Book Review of The Various Haunts of Men by Susan Hill

* * * * *

A rich crime thriller.

When Vintage Books invited me to read and review Susan Hill’s latest novel in this series, they recommended that I read this, the opening novel in the series, first. Having read it, I shall now review it, even though an awful lot of other people will have done so before me.

Set in a fictional rural corner of England, as if Ely or St Edmunds Bury Cathedral was near both Glastonbury and the housing estates of Stevenage or Houghton Regis, this opening novel in the “Simon Serrailler” series revolves around that character at a distance and the Detective Chief Inspector is seen mostly through the eyes of his General Practitioner sister and his new Detective Sergeant, Freya Graffham. In this story it is not just the criminals who are elusive, so are the crimes. The local drug dealers are proving difficult to even identify, let alone pin down, as is a gang stealing newly-delivered white goods. So when apparently-unconnected individuals disappear without trace, it’s hard for Freya Graffham to even be sure herself that she’s investigating a crime worthy of her precious time: convincing her immediate superior is beyond her and even DCI Serrailler only concedes that there “might” be something in the disappearances.

All of the missing, however, are missed by someone and the pain of these tragedies is well depicted.

As is the joy which Freya Graffham finds in her new life, away from London and her controlling ex-husband in a new community, where she can sing in the cathedral choir and make her own choices again. Matters of the spirit and alternative medicine are addressed at several levels and in varying shades of light and dark. The ending has a lot of impact, but is not completely dark.

The Various Haunts of Men by Susan Hill is published in the UK by Vintage, 1^st of February 2010