Two Hills Are Better than One

Reviewed by Vincent Cuddihy

I recently renewed acquaintance with Susan Hill, one of my favourite mystery writers. Specifically, her two most recent Simon Serrailler stories drew my attention: The Benefit of Hindsight (2020) and A Change of Circumstance (2021).

 A well-educated young couple are at home in their house in the country on a rainy night. A knock on the door reveals a soaking couple whose car has broken down a few hundred yards away and who are unable to get a connection on their cell phones. Invited in, they make the required call to their service number and, after a brief tour of the house, they head back out into the rain. A couple of weeks later, the good Samaritans receive in the mailbox a pair of tickets to an opera from their grateful beneficiaries. Imagine the hosts’ shock when they return from the show to find their home has been carefully looted, as though the thieves knew exactly what to look for and where to find it.

Simon is the head of the major crimes unit in Lafferton, a medium-sized city in the southwest of England. In spite of advice from his team and his sister Cat, a local GP, Simon chooses to keep news of this robbery under wraps. He thinks that if the thieves believe the police have not made the connection between the distressed visitors and the theft, they may be emboldened to act again and perhaps do something careless that will lead to their arrest. After all, the only real victim of this crime is the insurance company.

This is a decision that will haunt Simon with the benefit of hindsight. A few weeks later, another robbery occurs with the same methodical precision in the thieves’ selection of loot. Only this time the residents appear to have returned unexpectedly early. Both of them have been savagely beaten and inflicted with life-threatening injuries. Not only is Simon’s judgement thrown into question, but also his priorities: his determination to catch the culprits has taken precedence over his obligation to warn the public he is supposed to be protecting about the presence of this obviously well-organized gang and their methods.

Dissension within the gang leads more to the undoing of some of them than any special work by the police. But Hill leaves a number of threads dangling at the end of the book. A reader could be forgiven for expecting them to be tied up in the sequel. Some are, some aren’t.  I found this rather frustrating. 

At the end of Benefit of Hindsight, one of the purported burglars has been arrested. But he had an accomplice. No mention is made of any efforts to pursue him, or of whether the arrested man has been successfully prosecuted. On the other hand, Simon’s chance encounter with an old girlfriend does get picked up and becomes an important part of A Change of Circumstance.

One important change from earlier books in this series is that these are as much about Cat as about Simon. The writing is still very good, but Hill seems to be more preoccupied with the Serralliers’ personal lives than with the crime stories. For instance, when one of the pair who had cased the home is found dead, neither of the victims of the robbery is asked to identify her.  Perhaps Hill is trying to show the cracks that are occurring in understaffed police departments. Or perhaps she is trying to show how Simon is losing control of his cases. Either way, it is irritating.

A Change of Circumstance is an even more sinister story than The Benefit of Hindsight. These criminals are selling drugs. Not only are they trying to lure youngsters into addiction to dangerous chemicals; they are also using children as young as eleven to act as couriers in the distribution of the product to existing users. This is a menace that the police have known was coming. Networks like this have been operating in larger cities for several years. These are more webs than gangs, since each level of the operation has little knowledge of the level above that provides the supply and enforces payment.

Hill’s best writing is her description of the reaction of a family who have found their fourteen year old daughter hanging from the banister of the front hall stairway. Once again she lets the crime story slide as the police limit their inquiries to the girl’s parents. They never speak to her chums at school, even though earlier passages made it clear that some of them were aware that she was in difficulty and had begun to behave abnormally.    

I did find these stories gripping, primarily because of the superb quality of the writing. But I do think Hill is trying to do too much, with the result that some important parts of her stories are falling through the cracks.

The Benefit of Hindsight is available at the Lennoxville Library.

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