A DARK AND SECRET PLACE

Fantasist Williams comes down to earth—well, somewhat closer to earth—in this tale of a disgraced journalist’s search for the truth about her mother’s suicide.

It’s been so long since Heather Evans has been close to her mother that she doesn’t have a key to her house. Even if they’d been much closer, nothing could have prepared her for the double shock of learning that Colleen Evans killed herself after leaving behind a note addressed “To you both.” Heather doesn’t have any siblings. What unbearable secret led her mother to put an end to her life, and who else was she writing to? Searching for answers among Colleen’s effects, Heather finds a cache of letters written by Michael Reave, a friend of Colleen’s from the Fiddler’s Mill commune in the 1970s who’s been imprisoned for years as the Red Wolf responsible for a gruesome series of murders. The appearance of new victims of a copycat killer who’s clearly made a close study of the Red Wolf leads DI Ben Parker to urge Heather to talk with Michael Reave, who’s oddly eager to talk to her as well. But Reave, alternately reticent and rambling, is far from eager to tell Heather what either she or Parker most wants to know. After an anonymous note informs her, “I know what you are, and I think you do too,” Heather, more anxious than ever to get to the bottom of the mystery after her sudden estrangement from Parker, ventures with her old friend teacher Nikki Appiah onto the grounds of Fiddler’s Mill, where the pace of events will rapidly quicken.

A fairy tale for adults with strong stomachs.