Read this last weekend. It is, as its cover says, " a "novel of suspense". Pronzini holds the title of Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America; he's an old pro. I've read 8 or 10 of his books.
"The Hidden" concerns a married couple who arrive at seaside cottage on an isolated part of the northern California coast to spend a few days over the Christmas-New Years holiday period. Their marriage is in bad shape. The weather is stormy. The neighbouring cottage is occupied by some disagreeable, quarrelsome people, one of them a rude man with a handgun. And a serial killer is loose on the coast.
The novel is narrated mainly in alternating sections told from the point of view of the husband and wife. The reader gets an intimate view of the state of the marriage and the two characters, as seen by themselves and each other. Pronzini's prose is plain but effective. The characters and the scenes in which they talk and interact struck me as quite credible. The promised suspense is there. There's one big piece of misdirection that allows for a major twist to keep the plot interesting as it approaches its climax.
One important character, the bad guy, is less well developed and less interesting than the rest. And there is an epilogue in which another character's psychological problems are explained and resolved in a neat manner that I didn't care for.
But I enjoyed the book; it's a pretty good read of its kind.
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