A Question of Identity: Simon Serrailler Book 7 - Hardcover

"Not all great novelists can write crime fiction but when one like Susan Hill does the result is stunning" (Ruth Rendell)

"Eagerly awaited by all aficionados of crime fiction" (P.D. James)

"This is a crime series that specialises in side-stepping conventions, always to exhilarating effect.. The books succeed in harnessing all the genre's addictive power while maintaining a complexity and fascination all their own" (Independent)

"The real joy of the Serrailler series is Serrailler himself...rich in incident and intrigue" (Christopher Bray Express)

"The crime part of the novel...is very good. But as in all these books, we are also engaged in the continuing story of the Serrailler family... All this gives the novel a much richer texture than is usual in crime fiction...(Susan Hill) writes as an honest and disturbing witness to our times" (Allan Massie Scotsman)

The seventh Simon Serrailler crime novel.

How do you find a killer who doesn’t exist?

Duchess of Cornwall Close: sheltered accommodation, a mix of bungalows and flats, newly built and not quite finished. Despite the bitterly cold weather, elderly residents are moving in. They don’t notice the figure in the shadows. Someone who doesn't mind the cold.

Then, one snowy night, an old lady is murdered – dragged from her bed and strangled with a length of flex.

DCS Simon Serrailler and his team are aware of bizarre circumstances surrounding her death – but they keep some of these details secret, while they desperately search for a match. All they know is that the killer will strike again, and will once more leave the same tell-tale signature.

The break comes when Simon’s former sergeant, the ever cheerful Nathan Coates, tracks down a name: Alan Keyes. But Alan Keyes has no birth certificate, no address, no job,no family, no passport, no dental records. Nothing. Alan Keyes does not exist.

A Question of Identity introduces a new and chilling element into the Simon Serrailler series: it takes the reader inside the mind of a deranged killer. This is Susan Hill’s most thrillingly imagined crime novel to date.