Susan hill the various haunts6/28/2023 ![]() ![]() Best of all, her startling plots breathe new life into a conventional literary form. In fact throughout these books, Hill’s broad empathy and imagination take us into the minds of victims and criminals, cops and bystanders. ![]() Pay close attention to the way Hill uses her points of view: we get liberal doses of Freya here, as she tracks down a nasty psychopath. This habit is threatened by his gifted and attractive new subordinate, DS Freya Graffham. His bad behavior isn’t quite so obvious in The Various Haunts of Men but this is a fellow who’s an expert at compartmentalization. (The first being The Pure in Heart.) So I guess he’s got an excuse. But, hey, he’s coping with a serial child-murderer whom it took him two whole books to snag. In fact at the end of The Risk of Darkness, which I just finished, we find Simon coming close to boorishness, and rescued only by his resolute introversion. And while he’s total catnip to women, he is a real jerk to them. Tall, handsome, charming, clever, he’s got a secret life as an artist (sensitive drawings of Venice: not sure I’d like them) and a complex family life. ![]() Turner, “Scarborough Town and Castle” - relevant to “The Risk of Darkness,” but much more cheerfulĪs I’ve pointed out elsewhere, Susan Hill’s detective Simon Serrailler fits neatly into the mystery canon. ![]()
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