The Comforts of Home is the ninth installment in Susan Hill’s very successful series of Simon Serrailler mysteries.  By now the pattern is well-established. Each novel seeks to weave a tapestry using two threads: the increasingly complicated personal life of Serrailler and one or more crimes under investigation. In The Comforts of Home the domestic thread is the dominant one and Hill looks as assured and adept as she always does writing about Serrailler’s complicated relationships with his sister, father, and other family members.  The “crimes”, such as they are, feel cursory and halfhearted here, as if Hill’s normally skillful plotting has deserted her temporarily.  A tenth installment is due later in the year, so it’ll be interesting to see what balance she strikes in the next novel.

All in all, this isn’t one of the strongest books in the series.  Having said that, reading a new novel from Susan Hill, this one included, feels like pulling on a favorite sweater: warming, comforting, familiar and reassuring.