<DIV><B> Simon Serailler is back in this pulse-pounding, wrenching novel of action, love and loss</B>.<br><BR>We met Simon Serailler first in <i> The Various Haunts of Men</i> and got to know him better in <i> The Pure in Heart</i>. Susan Hill is not afraid to tackle difficult themes, always prepared to face up to the dark realities in everyday lives-and even the terrors of the real world. Her third crime novel, <i>The Risk of Darkness</i>, perhaps even more compulsive and convincing than its predecessors, explores the crazy grief of a widowed husband, a derangement that turns into obsession and threats, violence and terror.<br><br> Meanwhile, handsome, introverted Simon Serrailler, whose cool reserve has broken the hearts of several women, finds his own heart troubled by the newest recruit to the Cathedral staff: a feisty female Anglican priest with red hair.<br><br> With the complexity and character study that got raves for <i> The Pure in Heart</i>, and with the relentless pacing and plot twists of <i> The Various Haunts of Men</i>, <i>The Risk of Darkness</i> is truly the work of a writer at the top of her form.<BR><BR></DIV>