The author herself has a PhD in psychology, so expect maximum authenticity in this account of the disintegrating mental states of various residents of the Welsh city of Swansea. The most calamitous decline is that of a man who turns his gun on the innocent patients in a hospital waiting room, but we watch as others suffer. A police marksman is racked with guilt over his failure to prevent a child being shot; a psychologist must balance her career against the risk of her fiancé losing his while, at the same time, she agonises over her desperately ill sister. Kavanagh racks up the tension as the novel builds up the big reveal – who is the hospital gunman? Read nagiasayonara’s review of Hidden here.
