The Ones Who Are Hidden by Kerry Wilkinson

The fourth novel of the series builds on the ones before with another original and intriguing mystery for Millie Westlake to solve, alongside her continuing personal challenges. It starts with a call from Oliver, who has a strange tattoo behind his ear. He’s found someone else in the neighbouring town with the same markings. Despite her reservations, Millie offers to help, calling on Guy, her Godfather and former journalist.

As she digs deeper, uncovering a former commune and cult in nearby woodland, personal problems threaten to derail her enquiries. She’s a witness to a robbery that affects her more deeply than she expected. Her relationship with her former husband deteriorates as she seeks custody of their son, Eric. Then Guy is attacked and robbed.

It’s a familiar mixture of mystery and testing relationships as Millie uncovers answers to some deep and longstanding personal issues. Her growing confidence and realisation that she can make a difference drives the backstory and mystery investigation, leading to some highly emotional and moving moments alongside the rough and tumble of life.

The stories are beautifully written and constructed. The characters are sharply drawn and pull you in to root for them as they face the challenges of everyday life. Millie is complex, flawed but always intriguing. You want her to get the justice she deserves. Yet, hovering in the background, is an even deeper mystery that could change everything.

It’s tense, funny and full of surprises. I hope the author writes more books in the series as they’re too good to finish with this one.

Description

‘Your tattoo… it’s exactly like mine.’ She hesitates. ‘But – I’ve never noticed it before. I must have had it since I was little.’ The ink markings on both of them are delicate, barely visible. Interlinked triangles in the shape of a daisy. But how can two strangers have matching tattoos, they didn’t know they had?

With their parents gone and nobody left to ask, when Georgia and Oliver first come to amateur sleuth Millie Westlake for help with their daisy-shaped markings she thinks the tattoos are a joke. A funny, if unusual, link between two strangers. In the seaside town of Whitecliff, stranger things have happened – especially to Millie herself.

But then Millie finds an artist who remembers giving someone the same tattoo twenty years ago. Someone who spent years hiding in the isolated woods outside Whitecliff – the same place unidentified bodies were once found…

Even as Millie gets closer to answers, she witnesses a shocking robbery that changes everything. And as whispers of what happened in the woods decades ago become louder, how much danger will Millie, Georgia and Oliver put themselves in, to uncover the mystery of the daisy-shaped markings and the dark truth about their pasts?