Book review: One Dark Night by Hannah Richell

One Dark Night by Hannah Richell is the third book I’ve read by the UK-born (on-occasions Aussie-dwelling) author. I raved about her writing in her first book, The River Home, almost giving that a (rare, for me) 4.5 stars but felt some of the plot was a tad implausible. I said something similar in my review of The Search Party, Richell’s second book. Though in that book I’d struggled more with the sheer number of players involved. Anyone who regularly reads my reviews knows – for reasons unknown – I’m not great at retaining details of too many characters, unless I’ve spent quite a bit of time getting to know them. It’s not an issue in this book however. Although we’re introduced to a number of students, teachers and parents, I felt comfortable in the capable hands of our three key narrators (separated couple Rachel and Ben and and their teenage daughter Ellie).

Everyone in the small town of Thorncombe knows the tales of the haunted woods where the birds don’t sing and a girl in a white dress roams, luring people to their deaths. But when a girl in white is found dead the morning after Halloween, her body carefully arranged at the bottom of an old stone folly, the community is thrown into turmoil.

Local police detective Ben Chase is assigned to the murder investigation, but when the victim is identified as a student from his daughter’s school, tensions rise.

Was she the victim of a party prank gone wrong, or does the girl’s death represent something more sinister and ritualistic? As the investigation unfolds and the noose tightens around Chase’s own family, the only thing anyone can be sure of is that no one is safe until this violent killer is caught …

I enjoyed this book by Richell and didn’t have any issues with feasibility of the who, what, when and how here (which I’d mentioned in my previous reviews). Our three leads and narrators are also very real and complex characters and we’re given the chance to get to know them quite well. It’s particularly the case for Ben and Rachel who learn that Ellie has been lying to them about her movements the night of the murder but also not sharing being bullied at school and having trouble making friends (as she’s a new scholarship kid at a posh school).

I probably wasn’t as convinced by the relevance of ‘Sally in the Wood’ mythology here though it contributes to a combination of factors that have the police and others believing something sinister is at play – particularly given writing on the dead girl’s body (and fact she’s dressed as Sally for Halloween). Richell does a great job though at offering up some false leads and suspicious and plausible suspects. I certainly didn’t predict the direction this book takes, and loved the surprise (although it’s also a tad bittersweet). It also takes the messaging here to a deeper level, touching on bullying, gaslighting and the evils of online worlds where people may not be who we think they are.

One Dark Night by Hannah Richell was published in Australia by Simon & Schuster.

I received an advance copy of this book from the publisher for review purposes.