The Hidden Child is an interesting mix of fiction and true crime as it takes place during the time of the Moors murders by Myra Hindley and Ian Brady.
While it could be easy to focus on their horrific crimes, The Hidden Child uses a story adjacent to this and concentrates on the disappearance of a young girl, whose parents fear the worst.
The tricky part of having the Moors murders as part of the story means that it is always looming over the central narrative and often distracts.
As the story progresses as does Hindley and Brady’s involvement and it almost becomes neck and neck with the missing girl narrative by the conclusion.
While The Hidden Child does have a promising opening, it suffers badly from a midway slump that it partially recovers from for a quite bizarre finale.
Kudos to Griffiths for going at this time period with a different narrative but The Hidden Child definitely has an identity crisis it never really fully recovers from.
The Hidden Child by Rebecca Griffiths is available now from Bookouture.
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