The Vows of Silence by Susan Hill

The Vows of Silence
Susan Hill
(My copy Vintage 2009)

A sniper stalks the women of a quiet cathedral town, the police are baffled and it is a deadly race against time before the killer strikes again. The plot and setting could have come direct from the gene pool of modern British crime writing, from the sort of novel that is entertaining enough but seldom sticks in the mind once read.

The Vows of Silence, Susan Hill’s fourth novel featuring Simon Serrailler is, however, an entirely different sort of book. Out of what could have been the stuff of mediocrity she has fashioned a novel that satisfies its reader as both an example of genre writing at its best and on a level usually reserved for more literary works.

The important things, from a genre perspective, a gripping plot and the neat concealment of the identity of the killer until the last possible moment are handled with consummate skill by Hill and to this she adds a cast of fully rounded characters who resolutely refuse to return to their default setting with each new narrative operating in an English town so convincingly described you are almost tempted to look for it on an ordinance survey map.

I am often guilty of being somewhat dubious when ‘serious’ novelists turn to crime, or any other genre, suspecting them of ‘dumbing down’ their literary instincts in order to turn a quick profit. Susan Hill’s biggest achievement in translating herself into one of the most accomplished writers of crime fiction at work in Britain today is proving that doesn’t always have to be the case.