John's Reviews > The Hiding Place

This was pretty damn' good, and I'm not at all sure why it was published as a paperback original.

Twenty-five years ago, white Janet Manning's little brother Justin was murdered near a play park, and a black man with a borderline pedophile record was imprisoned for the crime. Now that man has served his time and is in the neighborhood again. Janet must deal with her internal conflicts over the conviction and her fuzzily recalled events of that day. Contributing to her problems is that a man has arrived in town who hints he might be Justin, miraculously surviving, the child's body having been misidentified all those years ago; another arrival in town is Janet's old boyfriend Michael, who seems to know much more about the murder than he revealed at the time.

Bell's a very fluent writer, so for the most part I found this an enthralling read; I also found myself completely involved with the central characters -- not just Janet but her daughter Ashleigh, Ashleigh's boyfriend Kevin, and the nearing-retirement cop Stynes, who got it wrong first time round and seeks atonement, plus lots of the supporting characters.

That said, every now and then I had to stop and reread a passage that I didn't understand, because Bell hasn't learned there's such a thing as the pluperfect tense; I really wish he would (and his editor likewise). That's about my only carp about the writing.

I realized the solution to the mystery some little while before Janet did, something that initially didn't worry me. During the last 30 pages or so, though, her inability to interpret the evidence that was staring her right in the face did begin to grate a bit. In the hands of a lesser writer than Bell, that might have worried me far more than it did. What's really impressive is Bell's exploration of the different kinds of familial love and familial loyalty: even one of the bad guys is obeying those imperatives, no matter how misguidedly.

A classic? No . . . but it's a really good and worthwhile read. Recommended.