The Various Haunts of Men

 

The Various Haunts of Men by Susan Hill

Simon Serrailler #1

Mystery

2004 Henry N. Abrams

Finished on March 22, 2023

Rating: 4/5 (Very Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

Having transferred to the small cathedral town of Lafferton from London's "Met," police detective Freya Graffham explores her new community and becomes fascinated by Chief Insp. Simon Serrailler, her enigmatic superior. Though she fits well within the local police force, she finds herself unable to let go what seems like a routine missing persons report on a middle-aged spinster. When yet more townspeople turn up missing, her hunch is verified and a serious police search begins, bringing her into closer proximity with Serrailler at the same time it exposes her to danger. Susan Hill writes with compassion, humour and a unique understanding of the details of daily life. In The Various Haunts of Men, she has created a small cathedral town (within the orbit of a large urban city) and filled it with recognizable characters.

Now that I've finished reading all of Deborah Crombie's books in her Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James series, I have begun this series of Susan Hill's. The Various Haunts of Men is a second reading for me; I listened to the audiobook in 2015 and gave it a 4.5/5 rating. I enjoyed it quite well this second time, but I think the audio production enhanced my initial experience; the book is 438 pages and it felt a little sluggish here and there. Rather than link up to my previous review, I've included it below since I don't have much to add.

This is a marvelous book! I accidentally read The Shadows in the Street, which is the fifth installment in the Simon Serrailler series, a couple of years ago and enjoyed it immensely. After reading a friend's review for another book in the series, I remembered that I wanted to get back to this author’s books and decided to see if I could borrow The Various Haunts of Men from my library. I was able to get it on audio and it was a top-notch listening experience. I got so caught up in the narration, I found myself holding my breath, anxious to hear what was about to happen next. One of the nice things about listening to an audiobook is that I am never really sure where I am or how much further it is to the last chapter. I find that this intensifies the suspense more than when I’m reading a print edition of a mystery or thriller. On the negative side, I missed out on a two-page detailed map of Lafferton, which is presented at the beginning of the book and which I only happened to stumble upon while looking up a couple of passages to share.

I don’t remember too much about the mystery in the other book I read, but I do remember that I liked the characters, so it was nice to start at the beginning of the series and get some background history on the main cast. Hill’s characters are fleshed out and the dialogue rings true, although I had to laugh at one point when one of the characters was referred to as middle aged. She is 53. Seriously? I don’t think I’ve ever considered myself middle aged! [Now at 61, I probably should!]

I love a good mystery and Hill kept me guessing up until the end of the book, but I also enjoyed the domestic details (reminiscent of Rosamunde Pilcher’s) of the narrative.

On simple comforts of home:

Simon went into the kitchen but Cat did not follow, not yet, she wanted to luxuriate in this room. It ran the length of the house and had long windows. From the kitchen there was a glimpse of the Hill.

The white-painted wooden shutters were folded back. The polished old elm floorboards had two large good rugs. Light poured in, on to Simon’s pictures and his few carefully chosen pieces of furniture which mixed antiques and contemporary classics with confident success. Beyond this one huge room, he had a small bedroom and a bathroom tucked out of the way, and then the galley kitchen. Everything centred here, in this one calm room, where Cat came, she thought, for almost the same reasons she went to church—peace, quiet, beauty and spiritual and visual recharging of her batteries. Nothing about her brother’s flat bore any relation to her own hugger-mugger farmhouse, always noisy and untidy, spilling over with children, dogs, wellington boots, bridles and medical journals. She loved it, that was where her heart was, where she had deep roots. But a small, vital nugget of herself belonged here, in this sanctuary of light and tranquility. She thought it was probably what kept Simon sane and able to do his often stressful and distressing job as well as he did.

On house calls and death:

She prayed that her phone would not ring. Spending some time now with a dying patient—doing something so ordinary as making tea in this kitchen, helping an ordinary couple through the most momentous and distressing parting of all—put the hassle and increasing administrative burden of general practice in its place. Medicine was changing, or being changed, by the grey men who managed but did not understand it. A lot of Cat and Chris Deerborn’s colleagues were becoming cynical, burned out and demoralized. It would be easy to give in, to process people through the surgery like cans on a conveyor belt and palm the out-of-hours stuff on to locums. That way you got a good night’s sleep—and precious little job satisfaction. Cat was having none of it. What she was doing now was not cost-effective and no one could put a price on it. Helping Harry Chater through his dying, and looking after his wife as well as she could, were the jobs that mattered and as important to her as to them.

Excellent British series! I can’t wait to return to the cathedral town of Lafferton to see what’s in store for DC Simon Serrailler. Next up The Pure in Heart. British actor Steven Pacey is a wonderful reader and it appears that he is the reader for all the audiobooks in this series.