The tenth novel written by Simon Lelic is full of tension, mystery and sadness. It starts with Ben Draper being delivered to his umpteenth school as a young teenager. The new school is a posh, expensive boarding school where Ben soon falls prey to his dormitory boys: bullied, ignored and derided. Three teenagers from the year above Ben come to rescue him and their kindness thrills Ben, a loner who feels nobody loves or cares about him. His potential new friends give him the feeling of being wanted and valued and Ben is soon eager for their acceptance. Ben falls in with them, longing for approval.
Time goes by and Ben will virtually do anything to please his kind friends. One gloomy day they head off into the woods to finalise the plans they have been plotting. They decide to tell anyone who comes across them in the woods that they are playing a game of hide and seek. Ben changes his mind about joining in their plot and runs away, frightened when their disappointment is shown. He is intent on hiding from his friends before he hears the ‘I’m coming to get you’. Ben goes missing and is never seen alive again despite a thorough police investigation.
Twenty two years later the body of a boy in found underground in a once sealed off crypt. It proves to be Ben and DI Robin Fleet and his police partner Nicky Collins are allocated the cold case. The method of getting rid of Ben was found to be cutting his throat with a knife, stunning him with a rock, stabbing him, and finally strangling him. So the investigation starts with ex pupils of the school traced and questioned. This is Ben’s story, past and present.
With great storytelling and a host of eclectic characters this story is fast and furious. You will come to really care about the majority of ‘the cast’ but others will revolt you with their cunning, malicious and criminal actions and their unquenchable thirst for revenge The story is addictive and I thought I’d marked out the killer, but definitely not in this novel. The ending is powerful and well thought out. I enjoyed the twists and turns, the suspense and the uncertainty about certain characters. I felt really sorry for Ben and the part about him praying for his life was so sad, as were his feelings of desertion and lack of true friendships and a caring family.
I received a complimentary copy of this novel from publisher Penguin through my membership of NetGalley. Thank you for my copy, sent out to me in return for an honest review. This is a good read with a very complex storyboard, well-handled to give maximum thrills with very few clues for the reader. This is my 3.5* review.

The first book by this author I believe I've read and my overall feeling throughout has been one of sadness.
Well written with interesting characters and a complex plot that is thoroughly tinged with sadness

A gripping story with so many twists in it, it is mesmorising and leaves your askig if anyone is genuine

The characters in this story attempt to solve a cold case! A body is discovered and raises many queries about boarding school life 20 years ago.
I enjoyed the book although it did take me a few chapters before I was really engaged with it.
I liked the police characters and felt interest in their personal lives as they developed.
The final chapters are gripping and tense and by that stage I was thoroughly engaged and really wanted to discover the ending. The final twist was good and I appreciated the cleverly woven plot involving now and then in this book.
Recommended

I lobed this murder mystery set in a prestigious school. One of my favourite settings. A cold case from 20 years before resurfaces. It is impossible to trust anyone in this book. Fantastic xx

My thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for my copy of The Hiding Place. This is the story of a cold case murder that leads to more grisly deaths twenty two years later. I was engaged from the beginning, Fleet is a thoroughly good man with a conscience and empathy. Ben Draper's story was so very sad and if nothing else this book will leave you wanting all boarding schools closed down. A great book containing every necessary element in a murder mystery..

I’ve read a few of this author’s works and so wanted to like this more. I loved the setup and the 25% gripped me, but then in the present-day narrative the detectives don’t make much progress and their arc regarding the investigation was slow and predictable. I much preferred Ben’s POV. I felt the detectives don’t really anything and there wasn’t enough suspense to keep me hooked. Also the antagonists’ motivation was confusing 🤔 I just wasn’t convinced fully.
This wasn’t a bad read, but not a memorable one either. A fairly average detective story about an old crime.

When the body of schoolboy Ben Draper is found more than 20 years later in the crypt of his private boarding school, DI Robin Fleet & DS Nicky Collins are put in charge of the investigation of this cold case. Whilst Ben Draper was at school, he had only 3 friends who had an agenda to bring down the school. Callum, Lance and Melissa, the damaged friends and 20 odd years later, two of the friends are hard to find and one is in the political limelight. The original teachers have gone and only the Chaplain remains on the staff payroll. A very intriguing story, told in flashbacks to when Ben was at school and his suffering at the hands of his friends to the modern day. A well written story, my first by Simon Lelic.

This book had me stumped. Sitting smug and thinking I had it all thought out, the author put me in my place. Finally we have a thriller that will keep you your toes. I truly enjoyed myself and will be recommending it to anyone I see for the next few months.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I really like this author and have read books by him before but this just didn't work for me. It had a slow plot and not strong enough characters for me to stay interested.

A secret lay undiscovered for almost a quarter of a century before being uncovered and leading to a trail of mystery and destruction. This story is exciting, fast and the characters all have their own dark histories to contend with. What deep unhappiness drove them to together and led them down dark paths?
I loved how the story plays out in their childhood in one chapter and brings us up to date in the next. We’re constantly given a hint at their past but not enough to make the ending obvious. I didn’t see the ending coming and it was full of recriminations, pain, fear and all the emotions you would expect from a pacy drama. This book is highly recommended as an excellent read.

This is the first book in a little while that has truly gripped me from start to finish. It’s set across two time periods: one is 22 years ago and the other is contemporary, which ensure large the book doesn’t sag at any point and races to a conclusion. The denouement here was surprising (though not strangely so - this reader started to get clues of it at about 70% of the way in) and satisfying.
Characters were really interesting. I wanted to know more about Fleet, Holly, and Nicky and I also felt incredibly sorry for some of the school children in the novel who were well-drawn. Sometimes a murder victim in a novel falls prey to not just their demise but also cliché - not so here.
I highly recommend this novel and will look for the next DI Fleet book eagerly.
Many thanks to NetGalley, Penguin UK and Simon Lelic for an ARC of this book.

This book was incredible. It was so well written with great characters and an even better storyline. It was dark, suspenseful and chilling with a fast paced sense of mystery that just built more and more over time. It was unpredictable and kept me guessing all of the time. I loved it

I really enjoyed reading the latest novel by Simon Lelic, an author I really should read more of.

The body of a boy is found, twenty years after going missing in ‘The Hiding Place’ an underground burial place in the grounds of a boarding school Beaconsfield. The pupil who went missing was named Ben and the discovery of his murdered body throws suspicion on fellow pupils and teachers at the time of his disappearance. DI Robin Fleet leads the investigation with his colleague Nicky Collins into the murder which keeps you guessing throughout.

This is well written novel that builds the suspense up page by page and kept me wanting more.

This is a very enjoyable read.

I would like to thank both Netgalley and Penguin UK for supplying a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review

This is a good crime/thriller and a decent police procedural story. With some intriguing and complicated characters. The only downsides are the stereotypical boarding school bullying that is so obvious it’s a bit too cliched now. Also I wasn’t too keen on the use of a lot of text messaging between the main characters, it took me out of the story and made it not real and believable. But overall not bad.

I actually read this in one sitting today - so obviously I was in its grips. Follows on strongly from The Search Party though this can be read as a stand-alone.

A dying boy prays to God that no-one will find him - but they did - 22 years later. Can Fleet and Collins solve this cold case, thrust upon them with no anticipation of it ever being solved. But solve it they do, bringing the secrets of a posh school out in the open as they seek redemption for the child.

Brilliant narrative, alternating between the current investigation and they boy's last days, and that like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, seem to fit but don't as they will be found to fit somewhere else.

Lelic's tenth book and my second from him - both being fabulous reads.

Twenty-two years after his disappearance during a game of Hide-and-Seek, Ben Draper’s remains are found in the forgotten crypt of a totally razed and overgrown chapel in the grounds of his boarding school. The PM shows he had been clubbed, stabbed and strangled. At the time of his death, he appeared to have only three friends at the school, all of whom had been part of the game – it is also worth noting that they are all mid-teens, an unlikely age for this sort of game.
DI Robin Fleet and DS Nicky Collins are the local Missing Persons team, just them, no other support. It will not surprise the reader that Fleet is a short, overweight, cigarette smoking, divorcee, relegated to this job because his boss dislikes him for being a proper copper not a pen pushing graduate. It is less clear why Nicky has volunteered to be the other part of the team.
Fleet’s first lines of investigation are the school, specifically the Headmaster who has been in post since before Ben enrolled, The Chaplain, the only other staff member from that time, and the three friends. Two of these, Lance and Melissa, have dropped off the radar while the third is Callum Richardson, former spoilt bad-boy but now famous as a TV star, socialite, politician and thorn in the side of the government. This latter means the case has become high profile and the powers that be want it solved and closed down asap. Lance turns out to be a drunk sometime painter and decorator and Melissa is reportedly a homeless junkie – “reportedly” because she seems to have disappeared some time ago. Attempts are also being made to contact and talk to any other ex-pupils or staff members, without much success.
The story is told from two perspectives: Ben’s time at the school leading up to his death and Fleet’s investigation. It is, therefore, a fairly straightforward police procedural (PP) with little diversionary material except some interaction between Fleet and his ex-wife. As a puzzle, it is not very difficult to work out the who and why of the murder, although there is a slight twist that I didn’t spot ‘til very late. The book is written in a smooth and uncluttered style, typical of Lelic’s previous books and, like them, it is a standalone (although it does feel a bit like this might be the start of a series). Overall, an enjoyable read, especially for PP readers.
I would like to thank NetGalley, the publishers and the author for providing me with a draft proof copy for the purpose of this review.

The Hiding Place by Simon Lelic sees the welcome return of DI Rob Fleet from his previous book, The Search Party.

The body of a young boy, Ben, who was reported missing 20 years earlier is found in the grounds of Beaconsfield ,a prestigious boarding school. The last reported people to have seen the lad were a trio of seriously dysfunctional fellow pupils slightly older than the missing the lad . When it's discovered that he was murdered this causes problems for Fleet,who is tasked with investigating, as one of the 3 has become a controversial political figure convinced that the timing of the discovery is not a coincidence.
The story is told in separate timelines,from when troubled Ben starts at Beaconsfield and is gradually dragged into the orbit of the small group of damaged teens and their twisted plans and the present day as the investigation turns deadly .

This is a great read, Ben is a tragic figure ,his new-found "friends" damaged in different ways and the story of his brief time at Beaconsfield is moving and tense as the reader is given a countdown to his death. Some of staff have secrets of their own that they don't want exposed.. There are plenty of Red Herrings and things are often not as they first appear. This one will keep the reader on their toes..

An excellent book,up to Simon Lelic's usual high standards.

This is an engaging police procedural, with empathetic main characters, Fleet and Nicky. The story is well paced, alternating between present day and the past events of 22 years previously. Only 4 stars from me as the boarding school setting aspect of the story was familiar from other detective books and TV programmes..

This terrific read ticks all the boxes! It is a cleverly constructed story, well written and with regular relegations to help the reader guess the ending. The Hiding Place is an underground burial place in the grounds of Beaconsfield, a boarding school with ideas above its effectiveness. The body of a pupil who went missing,
Ben, is discovered twenty years after he went missing. He was murdered. Teachers, other pupils are all possible suspects. Fleet and his assistant Nicky are charged with discovering what happened. That leads to very shrewd observations about the nature of boarding schools and the damaged to children who are abandoned there by parents. The detectives examine the few contacts Ben had as a bullied and disliked pupil. It emerges that a group of them wanted to damage the school to ensure its closure. The question is how far were they prepared to go. The book ends with a surprising culprit and a dramatic climax. A side story which is important too is Fleet’s personal life which makes him an interesting character study too. I recommend this book.