A Place of Secrets by Shane Peacock
A Northern Gothic mystery
An isolated, snowbound setting. A murder. A shocker reveal at the end: the killer is the last person you suspected.
Ah, yes, you’re thinking. Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap, the venerable whodunit that débuted in 1952 and has been performed in London’s West End and elsewhere around the world ever since.
Another shocker reveal: no, not The Mousetrap. I’m alluding to A Place of Secrets, by award-winning author Shane Peacock. In his new novel, a follow-up to As We Forgive Others, Peacock again offers the Northern Gothic version of crime. Christie’s Mousetrap setting was an English house. But, given the expanse of our own country, a small, lonely Ontario town serves nicely as the Canadian version.
As We Forgive Others, about a search for a missing woman, featured two sleuths: Hugh Mercer, a former NYPD detective, and Alice Morrow, a police sergeant in the unnamed town. Hugh was the narrator. In this instalment of their adventures, it’s Alice’s point of view.
The POV switcheroo is intriguing. Hugh would like to continue the romance they started in the previous book. But Alice is uneasy. We gather that another relationship of hers ended badly, to say the least.
Not that Alice doesn’t still feel attracted to Hugh. Such as, after he makes one of his lamentable jokes: “Well, she thought. He may be a dick, but he’s my dick.” Still, Alice feels safer keeping things casual, no commitments.
Peacock captures this contrast in Alice’s and Hugh’s feelings with his elegant, less-is-more writing style. For example, this exchange between them on Hugh’s return to town:
“Sergeant Morrow.”
“Detective Mercer.”
“I didn’t leave.”
“I can see that.”
Hemingway would doubtless be pleased. So would Christie, in her case, by the grabber start to A Place of Secrets. Elderly Evelyn Massey is found dead in her home. Natural causes, everyone assumes. After all, Evelyn was 100. But what’s with the letter she left, addressed to Alice, about, gasp!, a body buried for 60 years in her basement? “May this destroy my reputation forever. I deserve it,” Ev wrote darkly.
Sergeant Alice then has to preside over a grisly scene: the breaking up of the concrete floor to find said corpse. “The gasps. The smell. Then the sight of the six-foot one-inch man—his skeleton, at least—jammed into the crate.” Turns out the man not only suffered a blunt instrument injury to his skull, but also the fracturing of his arms. Hugh’s take: “Anytime the blows are numerous, and in the same area, that indicates passion.”
As in all good mysteries, the puzzlement just piles on from there. Studying missing-persons files from 60 years ago, Alice deduces that the body in the basement wasn’t the only murder. A serial killer appears to have been at work.
And Evelyn’s death? Not heart failure, after all. An overdose of a blood thinner containing warfarin, used in rat poison. Alice and Hugh definitely smell a—well, you know what, all over this case.
As for the big reveal, Peacock delivers it with a panache that will satisfy even the most veteran mystery buff. As Alice moves closer, literally and figuratively, to realizing who the dunit is, we sense danger before she does. No! Watch out! We want to yell.
Doesn’t get much better. Don’t believe me? Go ask Alice.
About the Author
Shane Peacock’s writing honours include being a three-time winner of the Crime Writers of Canada Award of Excellence. The author of both young-adult and adult novels, he lives in Cobourg, Ontario. A Place of Secrets is his second Northern Gothic mystery.
About the Reviewer
Melanie Jackson is a Vancouver freelance writer/editor. She’s also the award-winning author of middle-grade/YA suspensers, including Orca Books’ Dinah Galloway Mystery Series, and several chillers set in amusement parks. Visit Melanie at The Writers’ Union of Canada.
Book Details
Publisher: Cormorant Books, September 27, 2025
Language: English
Paperback: 302 pages
ISBN 978-1770867987 (paperback)
ISBN 978-1770867994 (ebook)