Book Review: "Hidden Strangers" by Minka Kent

If I had read the first two instalments then why would I not read the third one? Unfortunately, the third instalment is the final one in the series and boy did it change my perspective on the entire ordeal. I'm not going to say exactly how because the event I'm talking about takes place pretty much at the end of the book but let's just say that I was both right and wrong about Camille and how she is portrayed as a sociopath. Apart from this, I found this book to probably be the best in the entire series. Why? Well, I think the author's writing just seems like it's going somewhere. It's set inside this one house and almost claustrophobically, the author plays into the isolation. Also, I tried to guess the ending and I was way out.

Camille has disguised her children and gone to her dreaded mother's home. Lucinda was a mother who never felt love, often feeding her daughter raw meat and making her drink paintbrush water. So of course Camille is on edge about her mother whom she can hardly call a mother being around her children. Apart from telling her children to be careful not to eat the things that Lucinda gives them, she also gives them a whole host of rules for staying safe that she disguises as a game to play with their grandma, a game that will protect them whilst Camille decides what to do next. Throughout the first couple of days, things that don't make sense start to unfold. Lucinda is remarried to a very rich man, they have a child together who was born around the same time Camille left Lucinda for good and atop of that, there's someone living in their house - and Camille's not sure whether he's supposed to be there or who he is at all.

Minka Kent almost makes this house of the rich, suburban picturesque feel suffocating and though from the outside it is perfection, the inside is clearly rotting, dark and terrifying. Camille wanders around the house in her sleepless nights trying to find answers but, when she discovers one answer she asks another question as she distrusts the surroundings around her and her children. And she's right to do so. Minka Kent writes every character as untrustworthy as the next. Of course, the reader knows enough about Lucinda now to absolutely hate her and not trust her in the slightest, but then we've got the younger daughter Zoe who constantly has her AirPods in, listening to some sort of podcast nearly constantly. Then atop of this we have the mystery of why this rich and brilliant man married Lucinda and how, though he is only in his 60s, he looks as though he may as well be around 15-20 years' older. Nothing feels right to Camille and because we see the story through her eyes, we cannot help but feel that something is madly wrong as well. And then, Camille finds a note during the hours she was asleep - a note that tells her that she isn't safe in this house.

All this time, Camille is looking out for her husband - a husband who is now looking for her and the children. She browses Reddit Threads dedicated to finding this woman who took off with two children and she enjoys creating throwaway accounts to cut off the scent, commenting things that are completely silly and are nowhere near where she actually is. Then there's descriptions matching her and her children, sighted where they are exactly, the news is closing in and she's scared her husband might pick it up. More and more people believe that there's something afoot in Chicago. Camille knows it is only a matter of time before someone, somewhere finds her. Minka Kent makes sure that the threat is coming from inside the house yes, but that the threat in question is also coming from outside of the house. Camille no longer knows what is more of a threat: staying with her abusive mother and the stranger in the house or leaving with little money and risking being found not knowing what will happen next. Minka Kent, you are a genius. I was absolutely hooked from start to finish.

All in all, as I have said previously, this is the best instalment of the series in my opinion though, I would definitely love to see if there's more to this. I would like to have one book maybe dedicated entirely to Zoe or perhaps look more into Lucinda's upbringing or even the relationship between Camille and her husband to begin with. There seems to be plenty more here and I hope Minka Kent returns to it because though I found faults with the first two books, the author threw me a curveball I definitely was not expecting at the end. Well played, Minka Kent, well played.