The Various Haunts of Men

In the quiet cathedral city of Lafferton, people are disappearing. Not dramatically — just gone, one by one, the kind of absences that barely register at first. Susan Hill builds her mystery on this unsettling ordinariness, drawing readers into a community where menace hides beneath the surface of everyday life. New detective Freya Graffham senses something is wrong before the evidence catches up, and that instinct — fragile, persistent, increasingly urgent — gives the novel its emotional center. This is a story about how long it takes the world to believe a woman who knows something is terribly wrong.

Hill writes with the patient, atmospheric precision that defines the best British crime fiction. She takes her time with Lafferton — its rhythms, its characters, its cathedral light — and that investment pays off when darkness finally arrives. The novel's structure rewards careful reading; details that seem incidental circle back with quiet force. Simon Serrailler himself is introduced with deliberate restraint, more absence than presence, which makes him all the more compelling. For readers who prefer their crime fiction character-driven and richly observed, this opening to the series sets a high and distinctive standard.