The Shadows in the Street, the latest addition to Susan Hill's Simon Serrailler mystery series, showcases the author's amazing ability to balance the elements of both plot and character without sacrificing one for the other. Hill allows her characters to simmer and become full-bodied persons who walk off the page and into the reader's mind where their stories intersect and blend to reach a very satisfying conclusion.

In Shadows the cathedral town of Lafferton is a cauldron of old and new. Simon still occupies his apartment in the Close near the cathedral but when the story opens he is on holiday off the Scottish coast. His twin sister, Cat Deerborn, a physician, is still seeing patients but is struggling to adjust to life without her husband, Chris, who died a year earlier of a brain tumor. Their father, who remarried after their mother's death, still disapproves of his son's two professions, artist and detective with the Lafferton Police Department. However, Cat and her stepmother have become quite close, and Cat relies on her to help with the three children. But the cathedral has a new Dean who, together with his wife and long-time friend and assistant, have upset the congregation with aggressive plans for changing the way the church conducts its services and community outreach. The Lafferton Police Department also has a new member who wants to work with Simon and learn his methods. And then there's Chantelle, the newest member of Lafferton's group of girls who work in the oldest profession, plying their trade along the tow path by the canal. When Chantelle is murdered, the hunt for her killer begins, and the plot begins to thicken.

Hill builds her characters' stories in targeted short bursts that reveal their strengths and shortcomings along with their hopes and heartaches. Short chapters move the focus rapidly from character to character and scene to scene, which keeps the narrative fast and fresh. Hill never judges her characters but manages to grant them all some measure of respect and dignity despite their failings. This sensitive treatment builds a foundation of trust between the author and her audience. She then leaves us to our own judgment of the murderer.

The Shadows in the Street is the fifth entry in the Simon Serrailler series after The Various Haunts of Men,The Pure in Heart, The Risk of Darkness, and The Vows of Silence.