The Hidden: A Novel [Paperback]

Tobias Hill (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 13, 2009

In southern Greece in 2004, a close-knit group of archaeologists searches for the buried traces of a formidable ancient power. A student running from a failed marriage and family, Ben Mercer is a latecomer to their ranks, drawn to the charisma of the group's members—to the double-edged friendship of Jason, the unsettling beauty of Natsuko and Eleschen, and the menace of Max and Eberhard. But Ben is far too eager to join the excavation project, and there is more to the group's dangerous games and dynamic than he understands. And there are things that should always remain hidden.

A novel of astonishing grace and power from award-winning author Tobias Hill, The Hidden brilliantly explores the secrets we keep, the ties that bind us, and the true cost of fulfilling our desires.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

British author Hill's fourth novel, a chilly existential thriller, is dazzling in places, but suffers fatal problems of pacing and plausibility. Ben Mercer, a disaffected Oxford classics student, runs off to Greece to escape the fallout of a failed marriage. There, a chance encounter with former colleague Eberhard affords Ben the chance to work on an archeological dig in Sparta, Spartan civilization being Ben's area of expertise (his Notes Towards a Thesis on Spartan culture are interspersed throughout the novel and make a fascinating parallel text). Ben receives a frosty reception from Eberhard's secretive group, but after finding deformed skulls at the dig site, participating in a jackal hunt and developing a relationship with the beautiful Natsuko, Ben is accepted and begins to realize his compatriots have a sinister agenda. Hill's use of the thriller structure to make broader commentary about modern life provides many rewarding and intelligent turns, but the plot itself is slow, predicable and, due to the villains' largely unexplored motivations, unsatisfying. The evocations of Greece and historical details of Sparta are excellent, but too much of this novel is muddled or at odds with itself. (Oct.)
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Review

“[A] high-stakes, propulsive narrative. . . . The novel’s ideas are explored with stylish rigor and a rare boldness made all the more powerful by its surprising lyricism. (New York Times Book Review )

“Apart from everything else that this novel is a beautifully paced thriller, a meditation on loss, guilt, obsession...it is also one of the finest novels written so far about this, our age of terror.” (The Observer )

“[T]his is a wonderful novel: elegant yet savage, restrained yet full-throttled, illuminated by the sort of brilliance that leaves you short of breath.” (Daily Telegraph (London) )

“Hill keeps the tension building to a climax which features the most unpleasant final image I’ve come across in a long time. Quite brilliant.” (The Independent on Sunday )

“[An] elegant, sinister novel…Grippingly good.” (Marie Claire (UK) )

“The ingenious plot twists of THE HIDDEN are satisfying to follow, and the book’s constant sifting of the present through the past is done with admirable intelligence. But what lingers more than anything are these quick, sure, playfully notational passages. You don’t often see writing as lively as this.” (The Guardian )

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Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial; Original edition (October 13, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061768251
• ISBN-13: 978-0061768255
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 6.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,055,327 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Style without substance, April 5, 2010

By 

Igor (Philadelphia, PA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Hidden: A Novel (Paperback)

How do you rate a well-written book that has a very bad plot?

Tobias Hill is obviously a very gifted writer. His command of the language is impressive to say the least. The imagery is beautiful, metaphors are effortless. Just a few subtle strokes is all it takes to set the mood for any given scene.

Unfortunately, all the skills in the world could not save this book. Simply put, it's boring. The narration crawls and meanders pointlessly for far too many pages. There are characters that don't serve any purpose in the plot. There is the setting, Sparta, and non-stop mentioning of its culture, traditions and mysteries, which turn out almost completely irrelevant to the actual plot. The excerpts from the PhD thesis written by the novel's protagonist are interspersed throughout the chapters. These also have nothing to do with the story, although ironically, they are one of the most interesting sections of the novel to read. It takes two thirds of the book to finally build up some semblance of suspense, but then comes the anticlimactic ending, and any hopes for a satisfying resolution of the plot come crashing to the ground.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars The virtues of this book are hard to find, March 10, 2010

By 

Ralph Blumenau (London United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Hidden: A Novel (Paperback)

Ben Mercer had read Classics and Archaeology at Oxford. His marriage had broken up, and he went to Greece to get away for a while. He worked in a restaurant in an Athens suburb; a fellow student from Oxford turned up at the restaurant and mentioned that he was working on a dig at what was Sparta. Ben thinks that would be ideal work for him - he had always been interested in the Spartans, not least because there is so little direct evidence about them: they left hardly any writing, and archaeological evidence is extremely meagre. Most of what we know about them comes from non-Spartan sources. Ben has been working on a thesis about Sparta, and the novel is interspersed with notes for it, and a grimly pathological, paranoid, cruel and savage society it must have been. He goes to the British School in Athens and gets himself sent to join the dig. He is looking also to work with a group: all his life he has been outside or at the most at the edge of groups. The dynamics of this particular group are both complicated and secretive: an inner circle does not welcome him and for a long time ignores him. Half-way through the book, they seem to accept him, and the scene where he is allowed to accompany them on a hunt to shoot a jackal is one of the few gripping passages in the book. The scenes towards the end of the book, which reveal what the group has been secretive about, are certainly unexpected but don't seem (to me, at any rate) to have any organic `rightness' about them, the supposed link with Spartan ways very tenuous.

I found the book disappointing. For a long time the plot did not seem to be going anywhere. The story is peppered with inconsequential events and inconsequential conversational exchanges. If it were not for the jacket hinting at a dangerous outcome, one does not sense danger for a long time, and I certainly missed the "astonishing grace and power" with which the blurb says the book is written. The characters do not really come alive: they are all seen from the outside, except for Ben and possibly Missy Stanton, the American head of the party who, like Ben, is treated by the group as an outsider. The description of some of the key-scenes is oblique. The dialogue, annoyingly punctuated, consists mostly of laconic one-liners (OK: `laconic' relates to Spartan, but that doesn't make the dialogue any less irritating); and it is sometimes hard work (and at times impossible) to know who is speaking. Sometimes it is not clear who "he" is - and that is really clumsy writing. I suppose that all these features of the style are meant to be as secretive as the story it depicts, but it sure makes for rebarbative reading.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Enviable writing, crappy story, February 12, 2010

By 

Mercedes von Uppity "Mercedes von Uppity" (DC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Hidden: A Novel (Paperback)

I can't deny that T. Hill writes beautifully. Full of metaphors and tightly wound descriptions that paint a brilliant picture. However, his story is ultimately a huge disappointment.

Trying not to say too much here (and give spoilers) I bought this because I was interested in the angle of the mystery that had to do with archeology, history, ancient Greeks. The mystery pulled me all the way through the book. When the reveal was finally close, I suspected Mr. Hill was about to pull a fast one. But I was 4/5th of the way in. Too late to bother putting it down now.

And it was as I had feared. The resolution had nothing to do with what the book was sold to me on. And the hidden plot was as dull as they come. (At least I think so.) Enough said.