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patriciau36's review against another edition
3.0
Well-written but too much going on. Might go back and read the earlier entries because The writing was quite nice.
1999yc's review against another edition
I would say this was an okay read nothing more nothing less.
Dc Simon, I found and felt was much like an acquaintance that you sympathised and pitied but also admired from afar. I feel as though the third person narrative was not fitting. Had there been some type of narrative where DC Simon's thoughts and feelings were involved the book would have felt more thrilling and engaging. Having a birds-eye view I felt took away a lot of potential from the book. However, despite this, I still found the story gripping. I read this in one sitting. Some, in my opinion, classic twists were added. Hill's characters are interesting and they feel very real. No doubt this is a book worth reading. However, I felt that Susan Hill could have done this a lot better. I have to say this book did feel a little rushed and I felt she could have dragged on the suspense a little longer. Also, the haunting done by Kimberly I felt was quickly brushed over and very brief for something significant enough to be included in the blurb.
I feel as if this is a respectful book that lightly touches the service of a crime thriller. I would have liked to see more of the procedure that comes along with a murder case as well. Overall Hill being Hill I think she could have done a lot better with the pace of the plot the language and narrative.
Dc Simon, I found and felt was much like an acquaintance that you sympathised and pitied but also admired from afar. I feel as though the third person narrative was not fitting. Had there been some type of narrative where DC Simon's thoughts and feelings were involved the book would have felt more thrilling and engaging. Having a birds-eye view I felt took away a lot of potential from the book. However, despite this, I still found the story gripping. I read this in one sitting. Some, in my opinion, classic twists were added. Hill's characters are interesting and they feel very real. No doubt this is a book worth reading. However, I felt that Susan Hill could have done this a lot better. I have to say this book did feel a little rushed and I felt she could have dragged on the suspense a little longer. Also, the haunting done by Kimberly I felt was quickly brushed over and very brief for something significant enough to be included in the blurb.
I feel as if this is a respectful book that lightly touches the service of a crime thriller. I would have liked to see more of the procedure that comes along with a murder case as well. Overall Hill being Hill I think she could have done a lot better with the pace of the plot the language and narrative.
miznanner's review against another edition
4.0
Review ** spoiler alert ** First in a well written, engaging series. I would call it a procedural with a twist. There is a family at the center that I believe remains there throughout the series and adds a sense of permanence to the action. My one complaint was that there was not one warning that one of the main characters would not make it out alive. That was a kick in the gut!
***The synopsis on Goodreads and on Amazon for this book is not correct. It is for the ninth in the series.
jbistheinitial's review against another edition
2.0
The Comforts Of Home opens almost exactly where the last Serrailler novel ended, with Simon grievously injured in the course of duty, and the core of the book concerns his recovery from those injuries, first on the Scottish Island of Taransay( where he inevitably becomes involved in a murder investigation), and then back home in the fictional cathedral town of Lafferton, where the cold case of a missing girl has been reopened at the insistence of her mother while an arsonist carries out a series of attacks in the area.
The strength of Hill's Simon Serrailler serieshas always been a strong focus on character, with Simon's GP sister Cat (and her family) playing as important a part as does the titular police detective Simon. The dramas of family life for Cat, Simon and their father are often as central to the books as the crimes themselves. However, in The Comforts Of Home this strength becomes the book's greatest weakness. The first 40% of the book deals with Simon's rehabilitation on on Taransay, while back in Lafferton, Cat's career crisis and difficulties with her teenage children are the focus. In a third concurrent narrative, their increasingly sinister father’s time in France is described in detail. However, where previous books have worked the family dramas into the investigation from the start, here the detection doesn't really takes off until the second half of the novel, which makes it feel like slow going.
While Hill's characters have always existed in an upper middle class milieu this hasn't usually affected my enjoyment of the books because they have also have tended to have a healthy dollop of self-awareness. However, in The Comforts Of Home their privilege sat increasingly uneasily with me; in a country where it's estimated that 14 million people live in poverty, including 1 in 3 children, I found it especially difficult to swallow Cat's justification to work in private medicine, when her reasoning was that £100 a month isn't much to most families, just the equivalent of "a supper out or half a dozen bottles of average wine". Cat, who has previously been the moral centre of the novels, as set against Simon's emotional coldness and Richard's violence, was the greatest disappointment here. Not just leaving the NHS but her continued support for her proven domestic abuser and accused rapist father, she comes across as an almost entirely different person from previous novels.
These elements could be almost forgiven, though, if the writing was strong and the crime element as intriguing as previous books, but sadly neither is true. The murder on Taransay in which Simon becomes embroiled comes with a side of unpleasant transphobia while both the cold case and the arsons in Lafferton lack any sense of urgency or narrative coherence. Overall - and surprisingly, given the long wait for The Comforts Of Home - it reads like a series of short story ideas stitched into a novel at the last minute. I would still wholeheartedly recommend Hill's previous Serrailler books, and hope this is a blip in an otherwise excellent series.
The strength of Hill's Simon Serrailler serieshas always been a strong focus on character, with Simon's GP sister Cat (and her family) playing as important a part as does the titular police detective Simon. The dramas of family life for Cat, Simon and their father are often as central to the books as the crimes themselves. However, in The Comforts Of Home this strength becomes the book's greatest weakness. The first 40% of the book deals with Simon's rehabilitation on on Taransay, while back in Lafferton, Cat's career crisis and difficulties with her teenage children are the focus. In a third concurrent narrative, their increasingly sinister father’s time in France is described in detail. However, where previous books have worked the family dramas into the investigation from the start, here the detection doesn't really takes off until the second half of the novel, which makes it feel like slow going.
While Hill's characters have always existed in an upper middle class milieu this hasn't usually affected my enjoyment of the books because they have also have tended to have a healthy dollop of self-awareness. However, in The Comforts Of Home their privilege sat increasingly uneasily with me; in a country where it's estimated that 14 million people live in poverty, including 1 in 3 children, I found it especially difficult to swallow Cat's justification to work in private medicine, when her reasoning was that £100 a month isn't much to most families, just the equivalent of "a supper out or half a dozen bottles of average wine". Cat, who has previously been the moral centre of the novels, as set against Simon's emotional coldness and Richard's violence, was the greatest disappointment here. Not just leaving the NHS but her continued support for her proven domestic abuser and accused rapist father, she comes across as an almost entirely different person from previous novels.
These elements could be almost forgiven, though, if the writing was strong and the crime element as intriguing as previous books, but sadly neither is true. The murder on Taransay in which Simon becomes embroiled comes with a side of
nietzschesghost's review against another edition
4.0
'The Comforts of Home' is the ninth book to feature DC Simon Serrailler based with the Lafferton police. I for one was overjoyed to see a new Serrailler novel as the eighth book released back in 2014 leaves four years between that and this. I'm not sure what has made it that lengthy, but I am extremely heartened to see him back doing what he does best - detecting!
Although I thoroughly enjoyed this, I didn't feel it was quite up to the exceptional five-star worthy standard that Hill's novel usually elicit from me but it still leaves most modern thriller writers looking like absolute amateurs. We catch up with Simon and stop in to see how both his physical and mental recovery is going after the chaos that took place in the previous book 'The Soul of Discretion'. However, his relocation to Taransay means there is a lot happening in various different places and this leaves the story with a lack of focus. The setting is wonderful and just like the characters is beautifully drawn, and the prose is compulsively readable as always.
This million-selling series is one that many crime buffs will appreciate but especially those who particularly like old school, atmospheric reads and novels with some form of substance to them. As someone who has studied and has a deep interest in psychological matters, I found I really missed Hill's discussion of these issues as they didn't seem to make an appearance in this book. I can't help but feel a little disappointed and perhaps shortchanged. I hope the profound aspect that Hill creates so expertly is due to return in the upcoming additions.
Many thanks to Chatto & Windus for an ARC. I was not required to post a review, and all thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.
Although I thoroughly enjoyed this, I didn't feel it was quite up to the exceptional five-star worthy standard that Hill's novel usually elicit from me but it still leaves most modern thriller writers looking like absolute amateurs. We catch up with Simon and stop in to see how both his physical and mental recovery is going after the chaos that took place in the previous book 'The Soul of Discretion'. However, his relocation to Taransay means there is a lot happening in various different places and this leaves the story with a lack of focus. The setting is wonderful and just like the characters is beautifully drawn, and the prose is compulsively readable as always.
This million-selling series is one that many crime buffs will appreciate but especially those who particularly like old school, atmospheric reads and novels with some form of substance to them. As someone who has studied and has a deep interest in psychological matters, I found I really missed Hill's discussion of these issues as they didn't seem to make an appearance in this book. I can't help but feel a little disappointed and perhaps shortchanged. I hope the profound aspect that Hill creates so expertly is due to return in the upcoming additions.
Many thanks to Chatto & Windus for an ARC. I was not required to post a review, and all thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.
pgchuis's review against another edition
3.0
This was a strange book, made up of various unrelated stories. Simon, recovering from a traumatic injury on Taransay, solves an extremely uninteresting murder case in about a day. Cat continues her "Everything about the NHS is terrible and so the answer to this is for me to go into private medicine" rant. Then Simon re-reads a cold case file and, again, solves a murder in one day flat, although there is no one left to be consoled by the end. Richard is ripped off by a lover 50 years younger than him in a completely different country.
On the plus side, I like Kieran.
On the plus side, I like Kieran.
jillheather's review against another edition
3.0
I'm not sure why she went back to this series to come up with this book. CW for weird transphobia.
stackwoodlibrary's review against another edition
4.0
One of these days someone will try & make a tv series out of Susan Hill's Serrailler novels. It could be as awesome as Inspector Morse (or Endeavour) but will it live up to my expectations?
I have enjoyed this series since book 1 (Various Haunts of Men, 2004). The extended family is different, has its troubles, is well developed over the series to keep the books not just about police procedural mystery. It helps give this series its difference.
This book is the latest, where Simon is on sick leave recovering from the huge injuries sustained in The Soul of Discretion. (IMO, it is important to read this series in order) Beautiful locations, interesting characters, plot lines that do get revisited.
Do yourself a favor and read this series.
I have enjoyed this series since book 1 (Various Haunts of Men, 2004). The extended family is different, has its troubles, is well developed over the series to keep the books not just about police procedural mystery. It helps give this series its difference.
This book is the latest, where Simon is on sick leave recovering from the huge injuries sustained in The Soul of Discretion. (IMO, it is important to read this series in order) Beautiful locations, interesting characters, plot lines that do get revisited.
Do yourself a favor and read this series.
lindiop's review against another edition
3.0
Just got a bit bored with too much Kat,and Richard etc.