Friday, 28 February 2014

Closure by Gillian E. Hamer


Reviewer : Francis Guenette

What we thought : Closure is the second of Hamer’s books that I’ve read and I admit to being hooked on her writing style. She crosses genres with consummate ease. In Closure, Hamer moves the reader between two very different storylines – a mother trying to unravel the mystery of her young son’s ability to relate, in great detail, his life in another time and place with another family and a police investigation into an increasingly complex serial killing in Northern Wales.

Paranormal meets police procedural with a bang! But Hamer manages so much more than this. She takes us inside the heads and hearts of her characters. Closure is an absolute page turner because of this – the reader can’t help but care about what is going to happen.

Another aspect of Hamer’s style that I highly endorse is her ability to take the reader right to the brink of the gruesome action and then pull the shade down, let the reader take a deep breath and use his or her imagination do the rest. If you’ve ever read a novel where the author did not get this part right – forcing the reader to go through the gory details over and over – then you’ll know just how special Hamer’s writing is.

And if all of that wasn’t enough to hook a reader, this author manages to convey a sense of the beauty, mystery and ethereal quality of the special place she has chosen to set her work. You will not read one of Gillian Hamer’s books without seriously considering some holiday time spent touring Wales!

You’ll enjoy this if you like : Canadian writer, Alistair Macleod, Silent Witness, Barbara Erskine.

Avoid if you don’t like : Wales. Or believe in reincarnation.

Ideal accompaniments : Dublin Bay prawns, Welsh rarebit and Ribena.

Genre : Crime, paranormal.

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