Extremely well written and deeply drawn characters, whose personal lives are described in vivid, often uncomfortable detail. My only gripe is the use of largely fictional places, making it harder (for me at least) to visualise the places being described. ( )

Another excellent installment in the series, which I'm so glad to have found. ( )

I really like the Serrailler family, tho serious amounts of Crap happens.... Have suggested this series to my ad - high praise indeed - and am waiting for #5.
I am not as rabid as most about Simon getting hooked up - you know, some folks do well as singles. ( )

This was my first reading of the Simon Serrailler series even though it's the fourth book of the serie. It was a gripping reading. Simon has his hands full. Not only has he to find a killer who brutally shoots young newly married women but also in his family there too are major problems. His brother-in-law suffers from a brain tumor and the survival prospects look bleak. In addition, he learns that his father has a new girlfriend. He can not get used to the fact that somebody else takes his dead mother's place. He gets no rest and sleep while he hunts the murderer. Furthermore, there is a side story, in which a widow finds a new partner. Her son is not at all agreed and draws his personal consequence. On the emotional level all stories are interrelated.
I like the story and will read more of this series. ( )

Young women are being shot, but by the same person? The first uses a rifle and shoots from distance, the other shoots face-to-face. Different modus operandii, different killer? One serial killer in a small town is rare, two serial killers in a small town at the same time is beyond apprehension. The thing that sets Susan Hill’s crime novels apart from the rest, for me, is the way she deals with the violence. It is there in the storyline but not on the page, we feel it through the reaction of Detective Chief Superintendent Simon Serrailler. Susan Hill writes page-turning crime novels about ordinary people, people we can identify with, but people that extraordinary things happen to.
Cathedral town Lafferton is the setting, and Prince Charles and Camilla are due to attend the wedding of the Lord Lieutenant’s daughter, not a great idea when a shooter is on the loose. A shooter who no-one sees, who plans meticulously, and who leaves no clues behind. As women keep being killed, Serrailler’s brother-in-law is diagnosed with cancer and his widowed father suddenly has a girlfriend. Elsewhere in Lafferton, widow Helen meets widower Phil, but her newly-religious son Tom disapproves. Quite how much he disapproves, Helen doesn’t appreciate. As the murders continue, the police focus on the forthcoming high profile wedding and the town’s Jug Fair. Both are ideal settings for another shooting.
This was the first of the Simon Serrailler books that I read, and I was immediately hooked in the way that finding a new detective series hooks you. I re-read it recently in one sitting. I’ve read many of Susan Hill’s other books too, favourites being ‘I’m the King of the Castle’ and her ghost stories ‘The Man in the Picture’, and ‘The Woman in Black’ [also a stage play and now a movie starring Daniel Radcliffe].
Read more of my book reviews at http://www.sandradanby.com/book-reviews-a-z/ ( )