A Question of Identity: Simon Serrailler Book 7 - Softcover

Hill, Susan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0099554879 ISBN 13: 9780099554875

Publisher: Vintage, 2013

Synopsis

How do you catch a killer who doesn't exist?

One snowy night in the cathedral city of Lafferton, an old woman is dragged from her bed and strangled with a length of flex.

DCS Simon Serrailler and his team search desperately for clues to her murderer. All they know is that the killer will strike again, and will once more leave the same tell-tale signature.

Then they track down a name: Alan Keyes. But Alan Keyes has no birth certificate, no address, no job, no family, no passport, no dental records. Nothing.

Their killer does not exist.

'As addictive as Rankin' Scotsman

About this title

About the Author

Susan Hill's novels and short stories have won the Whitbread, Somerset Maugham and John Llewellyn Rhys awards and been finalists for the Booker Prize. She is the author of over 40 books, including the 6 previous Serrailler crime novels. The play adapted from her famous ghost story, The Woman in Black, was recently made into a film starring Daniel Radcliffe. Hill was born in North Yorkshire, England and educated at King's College, London. She is married to the Shakespeare scholar Stanley Wells, and they have 2 daughters. She lives in Gloucestershire, where she runs her own small publishing firm, Long Barn Books.

From Booklist

The title of this, the seventh in the Simon Serrailler mysteries, gives a hint at the complexities of identity. In the novel, identity is something police and prosecutors must establish to link person and scene of the crime. It also becomes something much more fluid and pernicious as it relates to character and deception. Past informs the present here—in 2002, a serial killer in Yorkshire has, incredibly to all the trial watchers, gotten away with his murders. Quick cut to 2012 and Hill’s fictional town of Lafferton. An elderly woman is murdered in her home. Detective Chief Inspector Serrailler suspects a serial killer from the start. His profiling skills, based on the evidence at the scene, are impressive. Sure enough, more murder follows, with Serrailler and his squad desperately trying to catch the cunning killer. The novel is spiked with the killer’s musings, which heighten tension and illuminate a very dark space. Very spooky, tick-tock suspense. --Connie Fletcher

Edition details

• Publisher: Vintage
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0099554879
• ISBN 13: 9780099554875
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 384