One of my favorite series. Simon is ... very insular and private. He tends to hurt himself with it, but he has a strong family that supports him regardless.

Great characters and difficult situations to consider. ( )

4.5 stars. Love this series. ( )

Another good volume in this great series, though I confess I was confused about some of the subplots, which I hope will resolve themselves in future installments. ( )

Please note that I received this book via NetGalley. This did not affect my rating or review.

I am so annoyed at myself. So I like most of Susan Hill books so I saw this on NetGalley and went gimme without realizing this is part of a series. I really wish that NetGalley would let you send books back. Totally my fault, and for now on I am going to cross-reference books on Goodreads to just check for things like that. That all said, I can't really help here at all. Since this is book # 10 I was totally confused about past events and who was what and why things were important. I loved the cover though! Seriously though this dragged for me at times and I found myself rushing through it.

"The Benefit of Hindsight" follows DCS Serrailler after he has has returned to work after losing one of his arms. With crime rates down, Lafferton has been quiet, until one night when two men open their front door to a distressing scene. Serrailler makes a serious error of judgment when handling the incident, and the stress of this, combined with the ongoing trauma of losing his arm, takes its toll.

So Serrailler seems like an okay character. I don't know what to say here since this is the first book starring him I have read. All of the characters seem fine and have past and current connections. I did like that Serrailler messes up and the book follows through on the theme on in hindsight what could he have done better.

I did like the writing and thought the flow was fine. I just was not engaged since I came into this series at book #10 and did not care about the characters in the same way I would have if I started off with book #1. Because of this, I am going to go back and read this series and will update this review after I finish books #1-9. ( )

SPOILERS

This was a good read, although it ended with everything completely unresolved. I had spent the entire novel waiting for Cat's sub-plot to be folded into the main story and for the main story to develop into something more interesting than a burglary gone wrong, but neither of these things occurred.

The Cat sub-plot, involving her patient Carrie (and I'm still finding the whole private GP practice thing morally unacceptable) was strange and disturbing, almost Gothic at times, and didn't really fit with the tone of the novel as a whole. There were other mini plot strands which seemed as if they were going to be significant, but then went nowhere - why did we hear so much about the trip Declan, Pauline, and her husband took to Norfolk? what about the retired health visitor Cat consulted?

Simon continues to be self-involved and unlikeable (in my opinion!) but somehow I keep reading. ( )