A Question of Identity by Susan Hill (Vintage)
by Patrick O'Connor
SUSAN Hill is a renowned British author and one of her most popular works is the ghost story The Woman In Black but she is also an accomplished crime writer.
Ten years ago she began a series of novels featuring police detective Simon Serrailler but Hill is as much concerned with character as with a traditional crime-solving plot.
Her Serrailler stories, set in the fictional town of Lafferton, are not mere procedural tales but cleverly crafted insights into family dynamics as the Detective Chief Superintendent deals with his own personal dilemmas, those of his sister Cat and her two children, and his father and stepmother at the same time as trying to crack whatever crime has landed on his desk.
In A Question of Identity, Serrailler is trying to nab a serial killer whose prey is elderly women. This particular nasty villain cuts off their toenails and seats them in front of a mirror before strangling them.
The actual crimes take a back seat for the early part of the book – in fact the first murder doesn't occur until page 128 (although the body count does increase after that) but the tension in the narrative is still there.
Cat, who is a widow, works in a hospice which is threatened by budget cuts and her two children are involved in serious sibling rivalries. She also becomes aware that her stepmother Judith is hiding a dark secret about her own marriage to Cat and Simon's father.
Serrailler's relationship with his girlfriend Rachel is complicated by the fact that her husband Kenneth is terminally ill and she is finding her emotions torn.
So with all this on his plate, the last thing our copper needs after coming up with a name for his killer is someone who seemingly has no birth certificate, no address, no job, no family, no passport, no dental records. Nothing.
If you like your crime thrillers with a bit more substance to them, then Susan Hill is for you.