Books 2008: "The Risk of Darkness" by Susan Hill
The Risk of Darkness by Susan Hill
Susan Hill, best known for I'm the King of the Castle
, has created an intriguing detective in her Simon Serailler series, starting with The Various Haunts of Men
. Serailler is a gifted artist and emotionally constipated serial heartbreaker, who divides his time between hunting murderers as a Detective Chief Inspector, and staring moodily into the middle distance, the wind ruffling his perfect hair.
The Serailler stories are a curious cocktail of literary novel, romance and police procedural - with a dash of Silence of the Lambs. I grew impatient with the turbulent, enigmatic Serailler and his irresistible sexual magnetism, but this is a cut above the conventional detective story and certainly worth reading.