Hidden by Emma Kavanagh – Blog Tour.

I’m VERY happy to be part of the blog tour for Emma Kavanagh’s “Hidden” – review to follow – a brilliant psychological thriller that will keep you hooked until the end. Firstly, Emma tells us about characters in crime…

 

Crime From The Inside Out – Characters in crime

 

When I read, what interests me is the characters on the page. I want to see them come alive before me, watch them move through their world as whole, coherent individuals. When I write, I want the same thing. Whilst I write crime, it is rarely the crimes themselves that interest me, but rather the people involved in them.

 

Hidden tells the story of events leading towards a mass shooting, and one of the narrative threads comes from the shooter himself. Because what interests me is what pushes an individual to commit such an atrocious act, to inflict so much harm onto those that surround him.

 

Often what we concentrate on is the headlines – Maniac kills eight; psychotic killer slays ten. That’s not surprising because our ability to digest information is finite and, particularly in a story in which there is a great deal of trauma, our capacity to process can be diminished. So we take what we read at its face value. The man was a monster. He was insane.

 

But behind that insanity, underneath the nightmare of what they have done, is a real person, someone who talked with friends, was held by parents, someone whose existence extends beyond the atrocity. People make decisions. Often people make shockingly bad decisions. But uniformly they have made decisions for a reason. They chose the courses they chose because in some way it made sense to them. What fascinates me is in digging beneath the skin and understanding what it was about these people that made them choose to kill.

 

Publication Date: 23rd April from Century

Source: Netgalley

A gunman is stalking the wards of a local hospital. He’s unidentified and dangerous, and has to be located. Urgently.

Police Firearms Officer Aden McCarthy is tasked with tracking him down. Still troubled by the shooting of a schoolboy, Aden is determined to make amends by finding the gunman—before it’s too late.

So anyway, some people may remember what a huge fan of “Falling” I was, so it was with some trepidation I started reading “Hidden”. It is the usual thing of course, will you love it as much, what if the first one was a fluke, oh what can I say if I hate it? So I count myself lucky for more than one reason that within about 5% of this novel I was hook, line and sinkered.

A lot of that had to do with the haunting and rather exciting starting point – we see an aftermath. Horrific and heart pounding, it will draw you straight into the story and that will be that.

Going back then to prior events, we start to meet some of the people involved, find out more about them and about what has led up to this awful outcome. In true Emma Kavanagh style (once more and I’ll call it trademark) the characters become the skeleton key. Beautifully drawn and intriguing, from various walks of life but all with that line between them, a story starts to unfold, connections are made and slowly but surely that day is approaching when it all comes to a head.

It is all so addictive, so elegantly constructed and once again I found myself deep deep into the emotion of it – especially with Charlie who I related to on a very basic level. She wants to do the right thing yet often ends up doing the exact opposite, I can definitely stand by that one, so for me she was my favourite. All of them are brilliant and it really gives a wonderful emotive edge especially as you know at least some of what is coming.

I was especially fascinated by the portions of the story relating to armed officers – it felt terribly authentic, unsurprising really – not only on points of procedure but also on the feelings and issues that can arise. Aden is a really excellent protagonist here, torn sometimes but with a good heart and a determination to protect.

Overall then what was I worried about? Turns out if anything this was better than Falling – certainly if you love a psychological crime thriller that is mostly character driven, you’ll love this. The ending was pitch perfect and may surprise you. Don’t miss it whatever you do. Oh and maybe put a pot of coffee on before you start….

You can follow Emma on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/EmmaLK

Purchase Information: https://www.waterstones.com/book/hidden/emma-kavanagh/9781780892047

You can read an extract from Chapter One here: http://www.deadgoodbooks.co.uk/index.php/extract-hidden-emma-kavanagh/

Happy Reading Folks!