Hide and Seek - Clare Sambrook

Published: 2004 ~ Introduction ~ I've picked up this paperback from a charity shop recently as I was drawn to the synopsis at the back while my appetite was further whetted by two references to Mark Haddon (A Spot of Bother, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time) whose works I had read previously. With hindsight the comparison turned out to be wrong and now I'm more cautious about giving credit to such statements. ~ About the author ~ Clare Sambrook graduated from Cambridge and works as an investigative journalist. She debuted with Hide & Seek in 2004 a book well-received by critics. She lives in Cumbria and ...  Read the complete review

I found this in a charity shop and the cover really pulled me in. I thought it looked very good and snapped it up for the bargain price of about 50p. The story is about a young boy called Harry who has a younger brother Daniel. On a trip out with the school Daniel goes missing from the coach on a scheduled stop at a service station. His parents are overcome with grief at his disappearance and Harry begins to feel responsible as he was on the coach too and had not realised that Daniel had not reboarded after their stop. The problem I found with this story was that it was told through the eyes of Harry, who is 9 years old. He cannot, ...  Read the complete review

‘Hide & Seek’ was something I bought as part of a special 3 for 2 offer without knowing much about it. It was actually the cover that had attracted my attention (different in hardback to paperback) and I thought it would make a good ‘free’ book. How wrong I was! I couldn’t put down the book and read through it very quickly. In fact I didn’t know at some points whether I was reading fiction or non-fiction (it is fiction by the way). I was very surprised to find this was her first novel – possibly because the topic area was quite unusual I felt. Basically without giving too much away (and you can find this out from the blurb anyway) – Harry has a ...  Read the complete review