Conville & Walsh

Melanie Sykes is in crisis. In the middle of a game of ‘hide and seek’, her seven-year-old daughter Poppy has suddenly disappeared. So, she quickly realizes, has Si, her estranged husband. But this is no ordinary domestic mix-up. Only a day earlier Si was arrested on suspicion of the murder of one woman and the abduction of another. And now, it seems, he has taken Poppy.

Moving between the present (the police’s search for Poppy) and the past (narrated by Mel as she desperately attempts to remember everything that may have contributed to her daughter’s disappearance), HIDDEN is both a fast-paced thriller and a study of trust, love and deception, set in the melancholic landscape of the East Kent marshes.

We witness Mel’s attempt to start a new life with the dishevelled and artistic Si in the dilapidated warehouse that they are attempting to renovate. Si insists that all they need to do to be happy is put the past behind them, but after the birth of their baby son, their relationship rapidly deteriorates. As Si becomes increasingly withdrawn and moody, Mel is convinced that he remains involved with Rosa, the ex-girlfriend whom he refuses to discuss. Even more disturbingly, the police are circling: questioning Si about the recent disappearance of Rosa from her cottage, and the inexplicable murder of a young prostitute a year earlier.

Night sets in. As the police search for Poppy intensifies, Mel is increasingly drawn to the derelict loft space at the top of the warehouse. The door at the top is always securely locked, but as she climbs the ladder and opens it, the shocking scene that she discovers changes everything. As the novel reaches its climax, we realize that, at its heart, the story is less about betrayal than it is about revenge.