A tragic and disturbing topic is a tall order for a debut novel, but Askew handles it with astonishing skill. School shootings, sadly, have happened more than once in the US, and Askew has taken the event and planted it into a UK (Scottish) college. Ryan walks into his college and kills thirteen female students. Then, himself.

The ensuing aftermath is shared by three POVs: Ryan's mother, Moira; Ishbel, the mother of the first victim, Abigail, and lastly, DI Helen Birch, the detective in charge of the case.

So, there is no 'whodunnit'. We know that from the get-go. It's the 'why did he do it?' and the effect on those most closely connected.

Desperation, emotion and heartbreak oozes from every pore from the start. It's a tragedy, of course, but I was starting to wonder if I could take page after page of it and, guiltily, I was rather irritated by Ishbel and her husband, Aiden, neither of whom managed to endear themselves to me. But Ishbel turns out to be a clever woman indeed.

An absolutely stunning debut by this author. Her characters are well observed and well portrayed, from the shocked and confused mother to the slimy, devious, unscrupulous and just plain odious journalist stomping into his reporting of the story with a sledgehammer. She certainly knows how to wring the pathos out of her words.

Askew has marched into the authorial arena with flying colours, and I know I shall be reading her subsequent work. ( )

‘What sense can there be in any of this?’

Centred on the aftermath of a mass shooting at an Edinburgh college, when 20-year-old Ryan Summers kills 13 female students and then himself, Claire Askew’s novel is a brave attempt to explore the private grief of those affected. It focuses on three women: Moira, the mother of the killer; newly-promoted DI Helen Birch, running the investigation; and Ishbel Hodgekiss, mother of the first victim Abigail. The book makes interesting use of different types of source to develop and explore the unfolding story, from Wikipedia pages to transcripts of police interviews to online journalism. This is a useful way to explore both the feelings of those personally caught up in the crime, and also to explore the wider public reaction, as a city and a wider world tries to come to terms with the event and demands answers, explanations. If there is a reason, of someone comes up with an answer as to why Ryan Summers did what he did, then there will be a collective sense of closure. Without it, if this is just a random act, then how can we be sure that this won’t happen again, that we or those we love won’t be the next victims?

This is an interesting take on the events, yes, and the focus on the female perspective and the all-female victims is important. Unfortunately, for me, there are some weaknesses in the way it is handled. The three central characters all have other, private troubles (of course they do) that are exposed as the case develops. Which is fine to an extent, but it seems a little cliched: the emotionally-tortured police officer, the wife who learns her husband is having an affair, the secrets of your own child… And then the character of the investigative reporter Grant Lockley develops into a silly subplot in which his dubious methods are revealed in an entrapment set-up initiated by Ishbel Hodgekiss. I found this strand and the way it played out to be a little far-fetched and seemed totally at odds with the general theme of the book and its message that there are no neat solutions, that questions will always be left unanswered in an event such as the shooting.

However, in general this is a very well written exploration of those involved in an unspeakably violent act, and the tension between private grief and public reaction. It is a book about how little we really know about those we love, and how devastating revelations and the truth can be. Despite my slight misgivings over some parts of the book I found this a worthy attempt to deal with a harrowing subject.

(With thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC in return for an honest and unbiased review.) ( )

It’s reminiscent of Montréal’s École polytechnique shooting: one morning at Three Rivers College in Edinburgh, 20-year-old Ryan Summers kills 13 women before killing himself. All the Hidden Truths follows three women involved in the case: DI Helen Birch, who is in charge of the police investigation; Ishbel Hodgekiss, whose daughter Abigail was killed in the shooting; and Moira Summers, the shooter’s mother. We follow them as they grapple with grief and try to find answers to the biggest question of all: why?

This book came to my attention because the author read at Crime in the Spotlight, an initiative at the Bloody Scotland crime festival where new crime authors read a short excerpt from their work as a warm-up to another event at the festival. The premise and the excerpt sounded interesting, so I took a gamble. It was well worth the gamble. Each of the three women is well rounded and compelling, and the narrative is mixed with online columns, tweets and even a Wikipedia article about the shooting—all very effective ways to convey information. (The Wikipedia article especially was a nice touch.)

What struck me most about this story was Moira’s storyline: as the mother of Ryan Summers, she faced a huge amount of vitriol simply for having been his mother. She received death and rape threats, and the journalist character in this story, Grant Lockley, seems to be going out of his way to find her guilty by association, fanning the flames of social media. It made me think of Columbine and wonder how the mothers of the shooters in that case would have fared if it had happened today. The rendering of that dark underbelly of the internet rang all too true and should serve as a warning.

I’d recommend this book if you’re looking for a gripping police-procedural read with well-developed characters. ( )