A Question of Identity, A - Softcover

Susan Hill

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0701186577 ISBN 13: 9780701186579

Publisher: Chatto & Windus, 2012

Synopsis

A cruel and strange murder confronts detective Simon Serrailler in the 7th novel in this highly successful crime series from international bestselling author Susan Hill.
 
Duchess of Cornwall Close: sheltered accommodation, a mix of bungalows and flats, newly built and not quite finished. Despite the bitterly cold weather, elderly residents are moving in. They don't notice the figure in the shadows. Someone who doesn't mind the cold. Then, one snowy night, an old lady is murdered--dragged from her bed and strangled with a length of flex. DCS Simon Serrailler and his team are aware of bizarre circumstances surrounding her death--but they keep some of these details secret, while they desperately search for a match. All they know is that the killer will strike again, and will once more leave the same tell-tale signature. The break comes when Simon's former sergeant, the ever cheerful Nathan Coates, tracks down a name: Alan Keyes. But Alan Keyes has no birth certificate, no address, no job, no family, no passport, no dental records. Nothing. Alan Keyes does not exist.
 
A Question of Identity introduces a new and chilling element into the Simon Serrailler series: it takes the reader inside the mind of a deranged killer. This is Susan Hill's most thrillingly imagined crime novel to date.

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

About this edition

• Publisher: Chatto & Windus
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0701186577
• ISBN 13: 9780701186579
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 368