CJ Tudor had a huge hit out of the box with last year’s The Chalk Man, and follows that up with another terrific stand-alone, The Hiding Place (in the UK, The Taking of Annie Thorne).

Joe Thorne has returned to the place he grew up, ostensibly to fill the place left open by a teacher who had killed her young son and then herself. Arnhill, an old mining town, hasn’t changed all that much, and Joe finds to his suprise that some of his old gang are still around, but none seem too happy to see him.

Renting an old cottage, the same one where the gruesome murder/suicide took place, Joe comes across the woman he yearned for all those years ago, now married to his worse enemy.

But Joe has hidden the real reason for his return, and while it seems fitting that he should, his appearance sets off a chain of events from which there will be no going back.

Joe’s young sister, Annie, disappeared when she was young, but returned, apparently unharmed a few days later. That was truly when things changed forever for Joe and his family.

Now as he struggles to keep an open mind and figure out what really happened to Annie all those years ago, he must face the ghosts of his past who are ever present.

To say this is a compelling, suspense-filled plot with multiple twists doesn’t do justice to Tudor’s knack for keeping readers glued to the page. Highly recommended.