The Hiding Place

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.

A tightly plotted thriller, this book switches between the past and the present seamlessly and keeps you turning the pages. A great book for any thriller fans

This excellent book is set across two time zones - the present and 22 years ago, when troubled teenager Ben goes missing from his posh boarding school and no-one seems to know why or how. An anonymous tip-off eventually makes its way to the desk of DI Rob Fleet, who runs the tiny missing persons unit in the local police force. He's out of favour with management and is sent low-priority and difficult cold cases, but a body is discovered at the school and there are connections involving politics and high-profile TV personalities.

I do enjoy Simon Lelic's style of writing - the book is both atmospheric and immersive; you can almost smell the aging wood panelling, see the teachers walking around in their gowns and feel the encompassing creepiness of the mist-shrouded surrounding woodland. The book examines the long-term damage done to children who are effectively farmed out to an unfeeling and remote education system, totally devoid of affection, resulting in the type of people who run our government, institutions and corporations.

Anyway, the book has a small cast of characters, all distinctive, all with secrets and problems. Fleet and his sidekick DS Nicky Collins, who is no pushover, have to track down the few acquaintances that poor Ben made during his brief stay at the school, only to find that their lives have taken drastically different paths. There was a surprise at the end and a very dramatic denouement. I highly recommend "The Hiding Place" to anyone who enjoys a good murder mystery or police procedural. Hoping to see this televised at some point - it would make an excellent mini-series.

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

My first book, that I have read by this author, absolutely brilliant! Highly recommended, and I will definitely read others written by this author!