Victoria Goldman’s new mystery-thriller Little Secrets couldn’t be set in a place more likely to make the little hairs on the back of your neck stand up. We are in HMP Panbrook in Hertfordshire, a huge, old Victorian structure that has been converted into Panbrook Prison Hotel. The management have invited around 100 people to attend a true crime weekend centred around a tragic event in the building’s long history, and the contemporary chapters of this story take place during those few days.
When the prison closed in 1999, the inmates were removed to other facilities – all but five, who were left in their cells. Their transport had been unexpectedly delayed. Believing the inmates were gone, the staff held a farewell party for one of their retirees, alcoholic beverages were consumed, memories and observations became less than acute. Nurse Anna Kendall from the health services staff knew the five men were still on site and made sure they each received one of the popular fairy cakes she had baked. Hours later, they were found dead in their cells – poisoned!
In due course, Anna was arrested, but before she could come to trial, she committed suicide. This was enough of an admission of guilt to satisfy the authorities, embarrassed about the whole episode, and the case was closed. But not everyone believes that justice was served, and two decades on someone wants to uncover the truth.
In 2019, 50-year-old hotel manager Maddie Batten is preparing to open the luxury complex for the special weekend guests. She’s standing in the lift, fretting, as she scrubs a message in red paint from the mirror. ‘Anna Kendall was guilty’ it reads. It soon becomes apparent Maddie has her own agenda for the weekend, well beyond her managerial duties. She wants to prove Anna’s guilt or innocence herself.
The hotel’s arriving guests include the prison governor at the time of the crime, the doctor who headed the health unit, and a former prisoner. One guest in particular could either help or hinder Maddie’s own investigations. Some years before, he wrote a book about the murders that concluded Anna was guilty, but now he’s come back to see the place anew and decide whether he still believes this. At first he seems rather unlikeable and full of himself, but the weekend’s strange events work on him.
Some chapters are written from nurse Anna Kendall’s point of view in the waning days of the prison. Through her we meet the five victims, though it’s a bit hard to keep them all straight. They’re a diverse lot, and several of them seem likely to inspire a murderous impulse in someone, if not Anna. They all find reasons to visit the health unit and flirt with her. A little rough around the edges, she’s apparently a competent nurse. And, regardless of the stress of her job or even what British justice eventually decided, she doesn’t seem to harbour any murderous thoughts. She and the other members of the health centre team are doing their best with what is clearly a difficult patient population.
Especially at night, the old prison has an ominous atmosphere. As Maddie monitors the grounds, she keeps reassuring herself that she does not believe in ghosts. Yet there are those strange lights. Noises too. Creaks and knocking. Unexpected drafts. Missing property. Notes and messages, and a dead pigeon in one of the buildings that hasn’t been renovated. A dead pigeon in a box containing newspaper clippings about the crime. I admired Maddie for disregarding the creepiness and bravely investigating these phenomena. At other times she’s hesitant, uncertain.
Almost all the characters, past and present, alive and dead, have secrets, including Maddie, and she’s slow to reveal hers. She today and Anna, 20 years earlier, both have secrets that explain their behaviour and what they care about, but by withholding them for so long, the author doesn’t give you enough chance to bond with these two characters and their actions. Many of the other characters seem more transparent, including Anna’s work colleagues, the guards and prisoners, or in the current day, Maddie’s boss and crew. You may sense what they were up to, for the most part, though I would not like to work for the tyrannical hotel owner, Derek.
As the weekend moves forward and Maddie makes some discoveries, she seems unaware or unconcerned that she may be moving closer to danger herself. If she’s correct and Anna was innocent, the Panbrook Prison killer may still be alive and well and possess secrets that must be protected with murder.
You come to understand Maddie’s motivations in this situation, though I never truly understood her. One of her little quirks, in particular, seemed likely to shorten her career in the hospitality industry and was at odds with her generally super-conscientious behaviour.
A fun read for a dark season. If ‘murder will out,’ so, in this situation, will its solution.
Victoria Goldman’s book, The Associate, was the Editor’s Choice winner of Best Indie Novel in Crime Fiction Lover’s 2023 Awards.
Also see The Sanatorium by Sarah Pearse or The Ice Retreat by Ruth Kelly.
Three Crowns Publishing
Print/Kindle
£9.99
CFL Rating: 3 Stars
