The Various Haunts of Men

Although Susan Hill is an established novelist, The Various Haunts of Men (2004) is her first mystery novel--the beginning of a series featuring DCI Simon Serrailler.  (The series is now up to three novels.)   The novel takes us down some fairly well-worn paths: several people vanish mysteriously in the cathedral town of Lafferton, but only DS Freya Graffham (newly transferred from London's Met) intuits that they must all be somehow connected.  With the help of the adorably ugly DC Nathan Coates, Freya manages to figure out that the game is afoot--between bouts of deep, apparently unrequited passion for the "enigmatic" (according to the blurb) Serrailler.

There are many mysteries about this mystery novel, not least of which is why Serrailler is supposedly the series' key character.  Graffham dominates the novel, taking care of everything that resembles detecting, while Serrailler hangs in the background being--what was it?--"enigmatic."  Unfortunately, the novel fails to distinguish between enigmatic and non-existent; despite Serrailler's purportedly irresistible charisma, responsible for shattering the hearts of legions of ladies, he has no apparent personality, nothing that would explain Graffham's all-consuming emotion.  Instead, we have a concatenation of cliched romantic characteristics: handsome! A brilliant artist! Promoted to DCI at the speed of light! Yet introverted! And alienated from his father! (Even the lady-killing, his sole visible flaw, is romantic.)  Since a number of these qualities have already been handled better by other mystery novelists--P. D. James and the poet-detective Adam Dalgliesh; Reginald Hill and the speedily-promoted Peter Pascoe--it is not altogether reassuring to find them again here.  It doesn't help that Graffham herself is beautiful! Talented! A wonderful cook!  There's an unfortunate inkling of Mary Sue and Gary Stu about the whole business. 

There are, however, far more important posers at issue--like, for example, the whereabouts of the detecting in what is supposed to be a detective novel.  Readers will catch the likely suspect early on, simply because there is no other obvious choice; the clues are virtually non-existent and the detectives themselves of almost no use.  The killer himself is not especially interesting, and his motive seems a bit on the tiredly Freudian side.  Red herrings about new-agey treatments dominate the plot and simply peter out in the end.  While Colin Dexter's Inspector Morse--a character I've always suspected of being a Sherlock Homes parody--usually solves crimes through elimination, Graffham and company inadvertently stumble over the solution.  (Serrailler, as I said, does nothing of interest.)  Along the way, though, Graffham commits an error so unbelievably stupid, with predictable results, that the reader may find her patience declining at an alarming rate.   I'm afraid that I was most exasperated.