Long before the age of irony the novel meted out just punishment, or at least linked effect to cause. These functions have long since devolved to the murder mystery, which combines gruesome reality with superior logic, leaving logic the upper hand. The rules may have changed, but the stereotypes — the small town with its confected name, the aristocratic sleuth, the unloved victim — are all present in Susan Hill’s strikingly old-fashioned debut novel as a writer of detective stories. A respected and prize-winning author, she has reinvented herself as a purveyor of middle-class, middlebrow mysteries, complete with all the stereotypes listed above. Why she has decided to do this is unclear, but the fact that this novel, which runs to over 400 pages, is the first of a series will delight her faithful readers. It can be read with ease, can encourage only the most limited speculation, and will be enjoyed by those so disheartened by present-day realities that any sign of tradition will be as welcome as a cup of sweet tea after a night of bad dreams.
Here there are cautious signs of an attempt to bring the genre up to date. There is, for example, an ongoing discussion of complementary medicine. There is the fact that most of the characters are women, even the plucky young investigating officer, Freya Graffham, who is nevertheless in thrall to her glamorous superior. But there are also signs that little has changed: newspapers called the Echo or the Post, a different typeface to indicate the voice of the murderer, who writes a memoir containing his innermost thoughts. Such apparent artlessness need not deter the reader: the spacious, even prolix narrative will dismantle initial prejudices, as well as advancing what is in effect something so familiar, so comforting that resistance is useless.
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