It took a while for me to decide to borrow The Drowning Place by Sarah Hilary from Oundle Library, because the cover blurb made it sound a bit predictable. There’s a detective carrying childhood trauma fighting his way through a complex murder case while learning to work with a new boss … yada, yada, yada. Then I saw it mentioned in a newspaper’s Best Books list and decided to give it a go, and I’m glad I did because it’s an excellent whodunnit.
Perhaps I should have taken more notice of the promotional quotes on the front of this book, because they are from Mick Herron, Elly Griffiths, Paula Hawkins and Clare Mackintosh – all authors I enjoy. Now, having read The Drowning Place, I’d say that Sarah Hilary bears comparison with all of them.
The novel is set in the Peak District and is the first to feature her protagonist, DS Joe Ashe. Aged 11, Joe had been the sole survivor of a school-bus crash and ever since he has lived with the guilt. In fact, he joined the police, in part, to try and make things right, because since the crash his neighbours have viewed him with deep suspicion and are wary of him. Joe’s new boss, DI Laurie Bower, has moved to the area recently to help her husband’s family cope with the deteriorating health of her father-in-law. She’s on a six-month secondment to Edenscar and is counting the days until she can return to her old post in Salford.
It’s the first few days of Laurie’s posting, so she and Joe are treading carefully around one another. The first case they must look at is a break-in at a holiday cottage. The police had arrived to check the property and found the house filled with different types of hunting traps, a really expensive and brand-new bicycle sitting in a bathtub and, in one of the bedrooms, a crossbow rigged up to fire its bolt when the door was opened. In fact, the bolt did fire and it only narrowly missed one of the policemen.
Several hours later a family of three is discovered dead in their home – father and mother both shot in the kitchen and a one-year-old baby boy drowned in the bath upstairs. The father had been a well-respected and busy electrician and the motive for their deaths are unclear.
The police obviously have to pay more attention to the murders than the break-in, but as their investigations proceed, small but potentially significant connections emerge.
My verdict
I thought The Drowning Place was a really cleverly-written mystery and I enjoyed the characters very much. The troubled, taciturn Joe and his sharp but empathetic and clever new boss. They work well together and their relationship felt real and believable.
There’s an added dimension to the story which I’m not going to reveal, because it would spoil the book for you if I did. The reader finds out about it in the first chapter and my initial reaction was to feel a bit cynical, but Sarah Hilary handles it so well that you are soon absorbed and it becomes a seamless part of the whole. Apologies for being so cryptic, but there’s no other way of explaining it all without this turning into a spoiler alert!
The landscape of the Peak District is well-described, but there’s nothing sugar-coated about it and I doubt this novel would encourage you to visit! In this, the countryside is grim and gloomy, the weather cold and mostly wet, the majority of the local population impoverished, and the place awash with holiday lets. There seems little to be joyful about.
As to the mysteries, well the solution was unexpected. Of course there’s a twist at the end, which I didn’t see coming, but I was anticipating a twist because the story behind the arrests didn’t fill in all the gaps. Sarah Hilary doesn’t waste much time on the twist, most of the narrative in the final quarter of the novel focuses on clues falling into place and a certain amount of jeopardy for Joe and Laurie.
I don’t think I’m making a very good fist of explaining why you should read this novel. I can only say that I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. I thought it was well-paced, well-written and completely absorbing. It isn’t a debut novel. Sarah Hilary has written a series of six books about a DI Marnie Rome, but DS Joe Ashe is a new series and there’s another book about him on the way, which will be published next year. I’m looking forward to reading that and give The Drowning Place 4+ Stars.
Review by: Cornish Eskimo
What’s in a Star?
At Oundle Crime we work on the basis that 5 Stars = “Outstanding and unforgettable. A book you can’t wait to tell others about,” and 4 Stars = “A good book with an interesting, layered story that you will still remember after a month.”
If you’d like to meet other crime fiction fans and chat about the books and authors you enjoy, why not come along to an Oundle Crime meeting? It’s relaxed and friendly, and anyone can drop in. Email join@friendsofoundlelibrary.org.uk and we’ll send you the details.