Simon Serrailler

A woman vanishes in the fog up on "the Hill," an area locally known for its tranquility and peace. The police are not alarmed; people usually disappear for their own reasons. But when a young girl, an old man, and even a dog disappear, no one can deny that something untoward is happening in this quiet town. Young policewoman Freya Graffham is assigned to the case; she's new to the job, compassionate, inquisitive, and dedicated. She and the enigmatic detective Chief Inspector Simon Serrailler have the task of unraveling the mystery behind this gruesome sequence of events.

Following on from the child abduction in her previous novel The Pure in Heart, Susan Hill explores the crazy grief of a widowed husband, a derangement that turns to obsession and threats, violence and terror.

Hill's readers met the enigmatic and brooding Simon Serrailler in The Various Haunts of Men and got to know him better in The Pure in Heart and The Risk of Darkness. The Vows of Silence, the fourth crime novel featuring Chief Inspector Serrailler, is perhaps even more compulsive and convincing than its predecessors. A gunman is terrorizing young women in the cathedral town of Lafferton. What, if anything, links the apparently random murders? Is the marksman with the rifle the same as the killer with the handgun?With the complexity and character study that earned raves for The Pure in Heart and the relentless pacing and plot twists of The Various Haunts of Men, The Vows of Silence is truly the work of a writer at the top of her form.

Simon Serrailler has just wrapped up a difficult case for SIFT-Special Incident Flying Taskforce-and is on a sabbatical on a far-flung Scottish island when he is called back to Lafferton. Two local prostitutes have gone missing and are subsequently found strangled. By the time he gets back, another girl has disappeared. Is this a vendetta against prostitutes by someone with a warped mind? Or a series of killings by an angry punter? But then one of the Cathedral wives goes missing, followed by another young married woman. Serrailler follows lead after lead, all of which become dead ends. It is only through a piece of luck, a chance meeting, and a life put in grave danger that he finally gets a result.

Simon Serrailler is faced with that most complicated of investigations-a cold case. With freak weather and flash floods all over southern England, half of Lafferton is afloat. A landslip on the Moor has closed the bypass and, as the rain slowly drains away, a shallow grave-and a skeleton-are exposed. It doesn't take long to identify the remains as those of the missing teenager, Harriet Lowther, who was last seen carrying a tennis racket while waiting for a bus. But that was sixteen years ago. How long will it take to trawl through the old, stale evidence and assess it anew? The Lafferton force is struggling with staff shortages and economies, and Simon has to do a lot of the legwork on his own. Meanwhile, his sister, Dr. Cat Deerbon, is fighting for extra funding for the hospice which is threatened with cuts and closures.

Susan Hill-the Man Booker Prize nominee and winner of the Whitbread, Somerset Maugham, and John Llewellyn Rhys awards-returns with a gripping mystery "eagerly awaited by all aficionados" (P. D. James).The particularly unpleasant murder of a very old woman in a housing project rocks the town of Lafferton. The murderer has left a distinctive "sign" on the body and at the scene of the crime. A couple of weeks later, a similar murder occurs, and a month or so later, so does another.Initial investigations reveal that the mysterious "sign" was the calling card of a suspect who was charged with several murders in the northwest of the country, tried but acquitted on the grounds of insufficient evidence. All indications suggest that this person has simply vanished-or is he right under their noses? Simon Serrailler is obliged to delve deeper and scratch out answers in this addictive mystery of surpassing darkness by the bestselling Susan Hill.

Serrailler must confront his demons as Lafferton experiences a series of shocking crimes in this 10th book in Susan Hill's shattering crime series. Susan Hill stuns readers once again in The Benefit of Hindsight, the 10th book in her celebrated mystery series. Now recuperated after the violent incident that cost him his arm-and nearly his life-DCS Serrailler has returned to work, though he prefers to spend his spare time sketching the medieval angels being restored on the cathedral roof. With crime rates down, Lafferton has been quiet, until one night when two men open their front door to a distressing scene. Serrailler makes a serious error of judgment when handling the incident, and the stress of this, combined with the ongoing trauma of losing his arm, takes its toll. In the tradition of the fabulous mysteries of Ruth Rendell and P. D. James, The Benefit of Hindsight is Susan Hill's best work yet-a chilling new addition to a highly acclaimed series.

In this installment of Susan Hill's electrifying crime series, Simon Serrailler finds himself in devastating new territory as a sophisticated drug network sets its sights on Lafferton. The enigmatic and brooding Detective Chief Police Inspector Simon Serrailler has long regarded drugs operations in Lafferton as a waste of time. The small-time dealers picked up outside the local high school can't-or won't-turn in any valuable names, so they are merely given a fine and the trail runs cold. But when the body of a twenty-two-year-old drug addict is found in neighboring Starley, the case pulls Serrailler into the underbelly of an elaborate drug running operation that pushes narcotics out from the cities, into the suburbs, and right down to villages. The foot soldiers are the vulnerable local kids, like Brookie and Olivia, whose involvement gives Serrailler a bitter taste of this new landscape. It's a harsh winter in Lafferton, and with struggles both at home and on the job, Serrailler soon learns that even the familiar can hold shocking surprises. “With A Change of Circumstance”, Hill delivers yet another gripping piece of the Serrailler canon. Written in the tradition of the fabulous mysteries of Ruth Rendell and P. D. James, this newest case is sure to enthrall new fans and surprise old ones in what is a captivating new addition to a highly acclaimed series.