The Betryal of Trust by Susan Hill

The Betrayal of Trust is Susan Hill’s 6th book featuring Simon Serrailler, a detective in a small town in England.

A torrential downpour has flooded the town and during the clean up a skeleton is discovered. The remains turn out to be the body of a young woman missing for 16 years and the investigation into her death begins. A case 16 years old requires old wounds to be reopened, secrets to be revealed and much review of files taken with many cups of tea (it is after all set in England).

As with all her novels, the mystery is just the foundation for the story. It’s a solid foundation and interesting in itself but there are many other layers to the book. Her characters continue to evolve. Simon is a very flawed leading man. In many of the previous books I’ve not liked him at all. But in this book he’s starting to become aware of his flaws although hasn’t done much about it yet.

I found this book disturbing in some ways. Part of that is because of the themes, old age, dying, dementia, terminal illness and the care of people who are terminally ill and assisted suicide are all explored in this story. And the exploration is honest and uncomfortable as she doesn’t leave us with any easy answers.

By the end the mystery is solved but the story is not resolved. So there will be more Simon Serrailler books. You don’t need to have read any others to enjoy this one; there is enough back story to be able to read this. But I would encourage you to start at the beginning with The Various Haunts of Men and get to know the main characters. Hill’s writing is very good and while her books are entertaining , they also make you think.