Susan Hill - The Vows of Silence

These books succeed in harnessing all the genres addictive power while maintaining a complexity and fascination entirely their own. The Risk of Darkness reminds us that risk-taking, in fiction, as in life, sometimes pays off brilliantly. Independent

Susan Hill is not afraid to tackle difficult issues, nor to face up to the realities of stress in an ordinary English police station. Her third crime novel, The Risk of Darkness, even more compulsive and convincing, follows up the child abduction and explores the crazy grief of a widowed husband, a derangement which turns to obsession and threats, violence and terror.

Meanwhile, handsome, introverted Simon Serrailler, whose cool reserve has broken the hearts of several women, finds his own heart troubled by the newest recruit to the Cathedral staff: a feisty female Anglican priest with red hair

The Risk of Darkness is packed with action and adventure. Like Various Haunts, it hinges on a terrific twist which comes as a complete surprise to the reader; and like The Pure in Heart, it deals in depth with complex daily problems.

ISBN: 978-1-4000-2507-7

They had climbed for two hours. Then they had come into the low-hanging curtains of cloud. It had started to drizzle.

He opened his mouth to make some sour remark about the promise of a fine day, but, at the same moment, Iain turned his head a fraction to the left. Motioned with his forefinger.

Iain knew the hills and the weather of the hills, the subtle shifts of wind direction. Knew them better than anyone.

They stood, still, not speaking. There was a tension now. It hadnt been there minutes before.

Something.

The sun broke apart the cloud curtain, leaving it in tatters. The sun shone at first with a watery cast but then, like a man leaping out into view, full and strong. The corners of Iains mouth twitched in a smile.

But still they stood. Motionless and silent. Waiting.

Iain lifted his binoculars to his eyes and looked from left to right, slowly, slowly.

And he waited, watching the set of Iains head, waiting for the moment.

Their clothes began to steam in the sun.

Iain lowered the glasses and nodded.

They were above the deer, and for another half-mile he saw nothing. But they were there of course. Iain knew. They went care fully, keeping upwind. The ground was stony here, easy to slip.

He felt the old excitement. These were the best moments. When you knew. You were this close to it, this close to having it in your sights, this close to the whole point and purpose and culmination of it all.

This close.

There was the faintest outbreath from Iains pursed lips.

He followed the line of sight.

The stag was alone, halfway up the lower slope immediately west of where they were standing. It had sensed nothingthat much was clear for the moment. Keep it that way.

They dropped down and began to crawl, the soaking ground against their bellies, the sun on their backs. The midges came on with a vengeance, to find their way unerringly through chinks in clothing, brushing aside the barrier of citronella, but he was so keyed up now he barely noticed them. Later he would be driven mad.

They crawled for another ten minutes, dropping down slightly until they were level with the stag and a couple of hundred yards away.

Iain stopped. Lifted the glasses. They waited. Watched. Still as the stones.

The sun was hot now. The wind had dropped altogether.

They began to inch maybe thirty yards further and the thirty yards took ten minutes; they barely moved. Just enough.

The stag lifted its head.

The Old Man, Iain whispered, so softly he could barely hear.

The oldest stag. Not as huge as those living on the lower ground, and without the vast antlers. But mighty enough. Old. Too old for another winter. He had too much respect for the beast to let that happen.

They were downwind and perhaps a hundred and fifty yards off. But then the stag shook its head, turned side ways, ambled a little way, though never turning its back. They waited.

Waited. The sun blazed. He boiled inside his wax jacket.

Then, casually, it turned and, in a breathtaking second, lifted its head and faced him full on. As if it knew. As if it had been expecting him. It positioned itself perfectly.

He unslipped his rifle. Loaded. Iain was watching intently through the glasses.

He balanced himself with care and then looked down the sights.

The old stag had not moved. Its head was raised higher now and it was looking straight at him.

It knew.

Iain waited, frozen to the glasses.

The world stopped turning.