The Soul of Discretion (Simon Serrailler) by Susan Hill
| The Soul of Discretion (Simon Serrailler) by Susan Hill | |
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| Category: Crime | |
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Reviewer: Sue Magee
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| Summary: Every community dreads the thought that child abuse has been - or is - rife in their town. Simon Serrailler discovers that there are people who will stop at nothing to continue the abuse. Recommended. | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 320/9h54m | Date: October 2014 |
| Publisher: Chatto & Windus | |
| External links: Author's website | |
| ISBN: 978-978-0701187644 | |
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The story begins with hints: an old lady hears children screaming in the middle of the night, sees children being bundled away from a property she thought was uninhabited. A teacher is horrified by a drawing from a child which suggests that she is aware of brutal sexual activity. For Simon Serrailler the knowledge had come more directly: he was approached to go undercover in prison with the aim of getting close to Will Fearnley, a convicted paedophile who had consistently refused to divulge any information about his contacts. He was currently in a therapy centre and is was here that DCS Serrailer went as Johno Miles, also a convicted paedophile.
Going undercover means leaving your family and friends with no knowledge of where you are or what you are doing. Serrailler's sister Cat is used to this and so are his father and stepmother, but Rachel has only recently moved in with him and she's finding the going hard, particularly as she's not at all sure of Simon. It doesn't seem that he's planning on marriage and he's even a bit ambivalent about sharing his space with her: he reacts to the idea of moving somewhere larger with horror. His stepmother isn't too worried about Simon, but she is concerned about her husband, Richard. He hasn't been violent to her often, but she's aware that he's changed since he retired from his medical practice. He's also adept at hiding what has happened from her.
Few books really bring out the difficulties of being undercover. It's not just remembering that you're called something different (and not responding when someone shouts your real name), but steeping yourself in a new persona - and particularly one which you would find repellant in any other circumstances. Susan Hill brings this out perfectly: you feel the strain Serrailler's under twenty four hours a day, but how else is the information to be obtained? What also comes across vividly is just how repellant the people involved in child abuse are: Hill deals with what happens with sensitivity but it's still sickening.
This is the final Serrailler novel and this heightens the tension because you really don't know how this is going to work out - nothing is off the table in terms of outcomes and at times the tension is nailbiting. The plot isn't complex, but the characterisation and writing is good and more than makes up for this. I listened to an audio download narrated by Steven Pacey, whom I've not encountered before, but I enjoyed his delivery. He has a wide range of voices, most of which I found distinctive and there was little in the way of bleed-through from one voice to another. Male voices were better than female - but that's a minor quibble.
This is the point where I normally thank the publishers for sending a copy of the book to the Bookbag - but I bought the audio download and thought it well worth the money.
We've enjoyed other Simon Serrailler novels and can recommend The Betrayal of Trust and The Shadows in the Street. For another crime audio download, you might enjoy Last Resort (A Bob Skinner Mystery) by Quintin Jardine.
Susan Hill's Simon Serrailler Novels in Chronological Order
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