The Hiding Place

by C.J. Tudor

Amazon US / UK / CA / AU / B&N

Hardcover: 288 Pages

Publisher: Crown (February 5, 2019)

The thrilling second novel from the author of The Chalk Man, about a teacher with a hidden agenda who returns to settle scores at a school he once attended, only to uncover a darker secret than he could have imagined.

Joe never wanted to come back to Arnhill. After the way things ended with his old gang–the betrayal, the suicide, the murder–and after what happened when his sister went missing, the last thing he wanted to do was return to his hometown. But Joe doesn’t have a choice. Because judging by what was done to that poor Morton kid, what happened all those years ago to Joe’s sister is happening again. And only Joe knows who is really at fault.

Lying his way into a teaching job at his former high school is the easy part. Facing off with former friends who are none too happy to have him back in town–while avoiding the enemies he’s made in the years since–is tougher. But the hardest part of all will be returning to that abandoned mine where it all went wrong and his life changed forever, and finally confronting the shocking, horrifying truth about Arnhill, his sister, and himself. Because for Joe, the worst moment of his life wasn’t the day his sister went missing.

It was the day she came back.

With the same virtuosic command of character and pacing she displayed in The Chalk Man, C. J. Tudor has once again crafted an extraordinary novel that brilliantly blends harrowing psychological suspense, a devilishly puzzling mystery, and enough shocks and thrills to satisfy even the most seasoned reader.

“Some writers have it, and some don’t.  CJ Tudor has it big time – The Hiding Place is terrific in every way.” –LEE CHILD
 
“With The Hiding Place, CJ Tudor has proven that she is a true master at creating perfectly dark, highly propulsive, and tightly coiled mysteries that are utterly impossible to put down. From page one, the reader is pulled in with a gathering sense of dread, and taken on an addictive, thrilling ride to the very last page.” –AIMEE MOLLOY, New York Times Bestselling author of The Perfect Mother

 

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

Gloria might look like a delicate china doll. But the only doll she has anything in common with is Chucky.

 

Simon is a bloody awful teacher, but one thing he excels at is getting under other people’s skin. If you have an Achilles’ heel, he’ll find it and nip at it like a starving terrier.

 

We’re all still children inside. The same fears, the same joys. We just get taller, and better at hiding things.

 

There are no such things as white lies. Lies are never black or white. Only gray. A fog obscuring the truth. Sometimes so thick we can barely see it ourselves.

 

… something changed in her, that night, when we went down there. Maybe something changed in all of us. Maybe guilt and regret weren’t the only things we brought back.

 

My Review:

 

The Hiding Place was ingeniously crafted, wickedly paced, and brilliantly executed. I cannot recall the last time I was so raptly attentive or willingly read anything so mesmerizingly creepy. I tumbled right into this complex and twisted tale of deceit, regrets, and dark humor. It was chillingly realistic. I was taut with tension, hair sticking straight up, shoulders in my ears, and chewing my fingers; yet I didn’t dare put my Kindle down for fear of what would happen to the character next if I abandoned him to his own devices. The storylines were cleverly contrived and the writing was whip-smart and loaded with clever snark while it beckoned unremittingly with ruthless intrigue and cunning misdirections.

 

I was right there beside the irreverently flippant and rabidly waspish Joe the entire time – sometimes I was on his shoulder, other times I was behind his eyes and rattling around in his cranium. Ms. Tudor’s sharply honed words kept me present, fully tethered, and constantly on edge. I smelled the vile dankness of evil, heard the skittering of the hoards of insects, and felt his deep desperation and loathing as well as more than a few icy prickles of fear and anxiety. I was so fully engaged I even experienced a sense of claustrophobia while he was crawling through the dark tunnels.

 

After reading The Chalk Man, I postulated the hypothesis of C.J. Tudor being an evil genius; a theory she has more than proven. Luckily for us, in addition to her gifted intellect she also possesses exceptionally strong word voodoo, and I for one, cannot get enough of it.

 

About C.J. Tudor

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C. J. TUDOR is the author of The Chalk Man, and lives in Nottingham, England, with her partner and three-year-old daughter. Over the years she has worked as a copywriter, television presenter, voice-over, and dog walker. She is now thrilled to be able to write full-time and doesn’t miss chasing wet dogs through muddy fields all that much.