One Dark Night (Hannah Richell, S&S)

One Dark Night is Hannah Richell’s sixth novel. Like its predecessor, The Search Party, the story is a gripping, tangled web of mystery and intrigue from the opening paragraph to its thrilling conclusion. The morning after Halloween, a student from an elite private school in the small town of Thorncombe is found dead under circumstances that eerily mirror the town’s local legend, ‘Sally in the Wood’. Local detective Ben Chase is drawn into the investigation as superstition and fear grip the small community, threatening to boil over the longer the case remains unsolved. As suspicion spreads, it becomes a race to uncover the truth of what happened that night, before those closest to Ben fall foul of vigilante justice or the real killer strikes again. Richell is an expert at drawing in the reader by building complex and genuine connections between her characters, enhanced by her ability to imbue her writing with stunning descriptions of both place and art. Much like in The Peacock Summer, Richell’s use of art in One Dark Night adds a deeper layer to the narrative, making it—and the characters—feel richer. Fans of Richell’s previous novels and readers of Liane Moriarty, Sally Hepworth and Lucy Foley will find One Dark Night a perfectly balanced domestic-noir-cum-whodunit that delivers suspense until the very end.

Books+Publishing reviewer: Kate Frawley is a former bookseller and a librarian in training. Books+Publishing is Australia’s number-one source of pre-publication book reviews.

Category: Reviews