The Risk of Darkness - Susan Hill

Now you may all know that I am quite a Susan Hill fan, in fact I was surprised (only partly not hugely) when I saw realised she is the author with the most books on my bookshelves, and as you will see from yesterdays post I only put books on my shelves I have actually read. Therefore not only is she one of my favourites she’s actually my most read (followed closely by Daphne Du Maurier, Kate Atkinson, Stella Duffy and Tess Gerritsen), that was a long winded way of saying I like her work a lot basically. I started with her ghost stories, The Woman in Black being on of my all time favourite reads. Bizarrely as my mind started to develop a fondness for crime she started writing her Simon Serrailler Series. I have just finished the third ‘The Risk of Darkness’ and I think that so far it’s my favourite of the three.

If you haven’t read any of the other Simon Serrailler series such as The Various Haunts of Men or The Pure in Heart, I actually would recommend you start with them. While they can stand alone, in particular the first, I think you’ll get the most out of the book if you read them in order, though there is ‘what happened so far’ intro in The Risk of Darkness. I have to say personally I can’t read a series in the wrong order I don’t know why this is I just can’t. Simon Serrailler is a Detective in the city/town (I always imagine it’s a town but having a cathedral it must be a city – in fact in my head its very like Salisbury) of Lafferton, he is also an artist and this novel sees him weighing up the two careers. He is quite a complex character being a bit of a loner and having serious issues with women along the way. His family all live in Lafferton except on of his triplets who remains hidden in Australia, I always think something is going to happen with that story.

As for the plot I don’t want to say very much as if you haven’t read the previous two I could give quite a lot away. I will say this novel deals with the dark subject of female mass murderers which is one that isn’t tackled that often in crime. Well in my limited experience anyway. In all Hills ‘crime novels’ she deals with big subjects she wants to talk about. In this novel its not only female murderers but what might make someone who you would never think a killer become one, and in this novel there is a separate storyline discussing just that. We also gain more insight into Simon’s personality in this novel as he meets the new priest Jane Fitzroy. Could there be a happy ending for the two? In this particular series of Hill’s it would be most unlikely but that is what is great about Hill’s writing she is unpredictable and takes you to places and subjects you didn’t think she would.

This is a really good novel regardless of fiction genre. I don’t really label these as crimes like I don’t label Kate Atkinson’s Broadie novels as crimes though Atkinson’s have a lot more humour in them. It’s dark fiction with quite a lot of chaos, quite a lot of death which also looks at what makes people who they are and why. Apparently this is now the end of the trilogy but we do have the new Serrailler novel The Vows of Silence to look forward to which I will be reading in the next couple of weeks.