THE HIDING PLACES by KATHERINE WEBB

THE HIDING PLACES

BY KATHERINE WEBB

THE BLURB:-

A compelling tale of murder and deceit with a twist you didn't see coming.

One hot summer in 1922.

A house at the heart of the village.

A crime that will shock the community.

A man accused and two women with everything to lose.

When Donny Cartwright is accused of murder, his sister Pudding is determined to discover the identity of the real killer.

Together with newcomer, Irene, she begins to uncover the truth- a secret that has been buried for years. 

But when the happen upon a strange object, hidden in the past, they realise it will change everything...

THE REALITY:-

I loved the blurb above the title at the front, which read:- 'A secret so deep, only a liar can uncover it...'   Oooooh, the intrigue!  I've read Katherine Webb's novels before and some I loved- The Unseen is still in my collection and I enjoyed The Misbegotten, although it was confusing in places.  The Legacy and A Half Forgotten Song were good, but they didn't move me.  What I do like about this writer's work is that all of her novels are very different to each other in terms of place and setting which, to me, exemplifies a great writer with a fantastic head for ideas, and also someone who's executed her research well.

I enjoyed the olde-England bucolic setting of this book, where dyed-in-the-bone country beliefs, witchery and old wives' tales are a way of tradition.  You kind of get the feeling that not much has changed in these places over the years, including even nowadays, with modern manufacturing and farming methods in place.  Some things in life such as the sun rising and setting, the harvest and the animals needing feeding (and the humans!) are hard and fast, inexorable facts.  It is good and a kind of reminder of what's important; that however successful we might become (or not) or whatever goes on in our lives then the world doesn't stop turning and tomorrow is just another day.

There is a very clever- SPOILER ALERT- twist to this tale in that we realise (quite far into the story) that there are, in fact, two unsolved murders.  There are three main female characters- Irene, Pudding and Clemmie- and we also realise that Clemmie's story is actually set- EVEN BIGGER SPOILER ALERT!- at the time of the first murder, fifty years ago.  This is very cleverly done (see what I mean about country life changing little over the years) and totally and utterly seamless.  The writer achieves this by using ambiguous names in both time frames: for instance, there are two characters called Alistair Hadleigh (father and son) and the head of the Tanner household is always known simply as 'Tanner'.  Wow!  This was such a good twist that I'm tempted to read the book again just to see if there's any inkling of some separation of the twin time frames, some hint that I may have missed- but I bet there isn't.

There was a real mix of characters here- some likeable and some loathsome.  I couldn't help but like Irene.  What happened to her in London at the hand of her arsehole, spineless, pussy-whipped (by Serena, his wife) lover, Fin, was truly horrid, and I'm glad she started to find the beginnings of happiness away from her city surroundings and her distant, not-especially-loving or forgiving mother.  Making Clemmie a mute added a different dimension to the tale, as did making Donny war damaged.  This story picks up pace towards the end, where we learn the truth about the two murders.  We have one confession (which I'm not going to tell you about) and one discovery which I'm also not going to tell you about.  But I will say that I had this person down as a killer early on...

A fantastic read by a very clever novelist.