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26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Another Great Case for Serailler!, May 19, 2010
Reason for Reading: Next in the series.
I enjoy Susan Hill as a writer so much, even though I've only read three of her books so far! Fortunately she has an extensive backlist that will keep me busy for a long time. This latest Simon Serrailler novel continues on very much with the private lives of the Serrailler family, namely his sister and her children and his father and his new wife. They dynamics of Simon's private life takes up a good amount of space in these novels. The book also starts out by introducing all the characters and having them going about their daily lives that one becomes wrapped up in the story and is well into the book before a murder even happens.
Prostitutes are being strangled and found in the river of the Chapel town that Simon and his family live in. They have two strong suspects but neither can be proved nor do they really seem to fit as the unsub. Trying to work an angle involving an unsub who has some psychological reason for going after prostitutes is thrown for a loop when the resident Dean (Reverend)'s wife goes missing, then next a married a mom with two children. A case that has Simon and his teams going nowhere fast as every clue ends up back where they started.
I enjoy these mysteries tremendously. The characterization is wonderful. All players are fully fleshed out with backstories and personalities. The mystery is intelligent and clever. I had my eye on the culprit but can't really say I solved this one as I also had my eye on a few others! I read the book quickly over the weekend; it was one of those can't put it down 'til I'm finished books. The type of mystery found here is best described as a psychological suspense. The pace of the writing keeps in tempo with the pace of the case, at times slow as we bang our heads on desks trying to make sense of it all and then boom! we're off on another lead or another body has been found. Another great entry to the series. Recommended.
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Hill's Balancing Act Is Superb in Shadows in the Street, October 2, 2010
"The Shadows in the Street," the latest addition to Susan Hill's Simon Serrailler mystery series, showcases the author's amazing ability to balance the elements of both plot and character without sacrificing one for the other. Hill allows her characters to simmer and become full-bodied persons who walk off the page and into the reader's mind where their stories intersect and blend to reach a very satisfying conclusion.
In "Shadows" the cathedral town of Lafferton is a cauldron of old and new. Simon still occupies his apartment in the Close near the cathedral but when the story opens he is on holiday off the Scottish coast. His twin sister, Cat Deerborn, a physician, is still seeing patients but is struggling to adjust to life without her husband, Chris, who died a year earlier of a brain tumor. Their father, who remarried after their mother's death, still disapproves of his son's two professions, artist and detective with the Lafferton Police Department. However, Cat and her stepmother have become quite close, and Cat relies on her to help with the three children. But the cathedral has a new Dean who, together with his wife and long-time friend and assistant, have upset the congregation with aggressive plans for changing the way the church conducts its services and community outreach. The Lafferton Police Department also has a new member who wants to work with Simon and learn his methods. And then there's Chantelle, the newest member of Lafferton's group of girls who work in the oldest profession, plying their trade along the tow path by the canal. When Chantelle is murdered, the hunt for her killer begins, and the plot begins to thicken.
Hill builds her characters' stories in targeted short bursts that reveal their strengths and shortcomings along with their hopes and heartaches. Short chapters move the focus rapidly from character to character and scene to scene, which keeps the narrative fast and fresh. Hill never judges her characters but manages to grant them all some measure of respect and dignity despite their failings. This sensitive treatment builds a foundation of trust between the author and her audience. She then leaves us to our own judgment of the murderer.
"The Shadows in the Street" if the fifth entry in the Simon Serrailler series after "The Various Haunts of Men", "The Pure in Heart", "The Risk of Darkness", and "The Vows of Silence."
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20 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
read this for the on-going characters, not the Anglican soap-opera, May 20, 2010
I so wanted to write a good review of this book, if for no other reason than this: in the past year I've written negative reviews of nearly every one of my favorite mystery authors - Paretsky, Silva, George, King (KING! _twice_) and Maron. (And I am so so SO grateful for Deborah Crombie and Donna Leon, the ever-excellent.)
I came upon Susan Hill's series when there were three books out in the US and I loved them so much that I ordered the 4th from the UK, as I did this book, the 5th installment. Hill's characters are richly drawn, complex and quirky and intellectually engaged and engaging. She's a brave writer, giving us a world full of people who are closely (if sometimes oddly) involved in each other's lives. She shows us long and emotionally intricate relationships into which she doesn't hesitate to insert the awful reality of death. She kills off major characters, something most writers shrink from.
And the on-going characters continue to evolve impressively. The main plot of this novel is solid, if uninspired. But even I - and I'm a reader who never figures out either whodunit or who's-next - even I could see what was coming. Here is victim A. There is victim B. Here's the one who's got so much ink that we know she will survive. Here's the killer: here. But no, it's not a book where you are supposed to see the killer's identity, as there are many syntactical circumlocutions meant to conceal.
So that's very bad. But there's worse. The secondary plot seems to have escaped from a Susan Howatch "Starbridge" novel. For those of you who haven't dated Episcopal priests and been forced to read that series, Howatch is a romance writer who tried to go legit by penning a flock of books about the Church of England. What emerges is a soap opera in a cathedral close (Salisbury renamed Starbridge) with diocesan in-jokes and infighting to attract the Altar Guild crowd and lots of depressed drunks and spiritual angst amid world-class architecture. Gruesome. And Hill seems to have been infected by this virus.
The cathedral, its music, its place as anchor in the geographical and spiritual lives of the main characters has been a compelling part of the Serraillier series. But this time there's a hunk of the plot tied to the new Dean and his wacked-out wife and it's pure soap. I couldn't believe it.
Still, it's a wonderful series and everyone is entitled to a bad book. So if you haven't read the first four Serrailler novels, you have a great treat in store. And then check this one out of the library to keep up with Simon and Cat and Judith and the kids and hope for better things next year.
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