Ali Karim was a Board Member of Bouchercon [The World Crime & Mystery Convention] and co-chaired programming for Bouchercon Raleigh, North Carolina in 2015. He is Assistant Editor of Shots eZine, British correspondent for The Rap Sheet and writes and reviews for many US magazines & Ezines.
Pinter’s novel is a cathartic thriller that questions ‘identity’ in the face of perceived justice, and who people really are. The ghosts of Brian Garfield and Charles Bronson are invoked as the reader examines and questions our situation, and how circumstance can change who we are, and what we become. It also explores the law of unintended consequences.
Commencing brutally, a mother has to confront a domestic situation that turns to horror; from where this tale germinates into something very different.
The narrative jumps seven-years to the tale of Rachel Marin, a working single-mother in a small commuter town outside of Chicago. She leads a double life, a parent bringing up her children Eric and Megan with secrets that become revealed to the reader as the story proceeds. The connection to the concise opening unravels as we learn what made Rachel Marin into who she has become – a vigilante.
Her hidden role and backstory are revealed slowly, not by clunky exposition, but by events that build character and sculpt an enigmatic story. Marin fends off a mugger, and we learn that she came to Illinois from Connecticut, altering her identity [and her persona] to protect and shield her children (and perhaps herself) from the teeth of a dangerous world.
A former local politician, the disgraced mayor Constance Wright is discovered dead in what appears at first glance to be a suicide. Marin, a legal secretary is unconvinced and with the investigating detectives John Serrano and Leslie Tally on the case, a conspiracy appears plausible. The former mayor it seems was pregnant which casts additional doubt over the alleged suicide solution.
Instead of leaving the investigation to the police, Marin unravels her past, and her former identity in order to uncover what lurks behind the suicide that she is convinced is murder. The turn of events that follow, overturn the reason why she fled New England – to protect her two children. In her actions, Rachel Marin puts her life in Illinois and all she holds dear in deadly peril.
The backstory converges with the present, through vignettes that provoke deep-thought but leave little calm for the reader, or the legal secretary and her children.
The four words that adorn American police cars ‘To Serve and Protect’ also fits the maxim that best describes parenthood – namely ‘to give a purpose to life’. Those two axioms reside at the core of this novel, this tale of two halves.
I noticed that Hide Away has a suffix: a Rachel Marin thriller, which is great news as there appears more for the author to reveal when the book closes with a redemptive and disturbing climax.
Let’s hope she’ll be back because Hide Away is best described by the surname of the British film director who brought Brian Garfield’s well-known novel (with thanks to Charles Bronson) to our screens.
