The first of two books in a row that have made me question why on earth I read fiction anyway. For entertainment mostly obviously. I found myself putting this book down when (spoiler, but not a book-busting major one) the lead character needs to get inside the character of a child-abuser. I picked the book up again and obviously the author no more wants to tell me about the details than I want to read about them, so it wasn’t an horrendous experience to read after all. And there was entertainment and information and elucidation. I wouldn’t have wanted to have read a non-fiction book with a child abuse (maybe that is shortsighted of me too), and I did get something out of reading a fictional one. There are two storylines in this book that get home the point that people capable of evil don’t come with big pointers labelling them as such (and Ben Goldacre said something very similar when leaving a piece concerning a Rolf Harris song in his book I Think You’ll Find it’s a Bit More Complicated Than That I read recently).

The book itself was pretty decent. I like the ongoing family saga thing that is going on in the background behind the detective stories, and, in the end, I like the fact that Susan Hill isn’t afraid of putting some pretty thought provoking stuff into these books.