by Alice Atkinson-Bonasio

Created on: October 17, 2008

In this first Simon Serrailler novel, and marks Susan Hill's Crime-writing debut. The author is established in Literary Fiction publishing, but there is always a question of how skills transfer to different genres. There is certainly a different flair to this novel and the others that follow, a more careful and loving approach than you find in many books that offer a rollercoaster ride without much substance to back it up.

The Various Haunts of Men starts off by letting us glimpse the mind of the murderer through letters he writes to his mother. We never learn whether or not his mother is alive, and until the final third of the book we are left to desperately guess his identity as his motives are revealed through his own words. In some level the reader is led to sympathise with all the carefully constructed characters, including the murderer.

Hill does not rely on shock and gore to carry the narrative, but rather takes her time to lovingly develop each character. In other novels you would not be made to identify very much with the misfit victims beyond the fact that they met a terrible end. Not so with this book, where their pain is keenly felt. There is such a richness of plotlines and personalities in the story that it is very difficult to make any guesses as to what will happen next, much less about who the murderer is.

Through the experience of countless characters, a picture of a place gradually emerges, taking us into spheres as diverse as the practices of new-age healers, police stations, wealthy family homes, and an industrial park where the murderer executes what he sees as his necessary and worthy task.

The story is revealed gradually and almost gently. Where most crime novels give you revelations that feel like someone has suddenly turned on the lights, Various Haunts of Men lets your eyes slowly adjust and allows the shapes to come into focus in their own time.

The somewhat slow pace may not suit more impatient readers, but for those who enjoy a well-woven story it will certainly deliver. The final twist is also unconventional, as the identity of the murderer is revealed earlier than in many thrillers, and the shock lies not in "who is he?" but in "what will he do?".

The book stands comfortably alone, but it also makes you look forward to the next instalment. An intelligent and gripping read that will affect you long after you put it down.

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