Hide and Seek

Meet Harry Pickles, the fastest boy in the world (well, at least in school), big brother to Daniel (who runs like a girl but is, in his own twerpy way, a star), and the firstborn son of Mo and Pa, the best-looking parents in their Notting Hill elementary school parking lot. Harry's life, like any other nine-year-old's, is a colorful, frenetic, and fun blur of lunch boxes, vocabulary tests, and keeping up with his pals Piggy and Terry — not to mention keeping an eye on his kid brother Daniel.

Mo, a successful, well-known journalist, and Pa, a surgeon, have built a wonderful world for Harry and Daniel to grow up in, but when a school outing results in Daniel's vanishing, the complicated adult world of police investigations and interviews, searches of the countryside, recriminations, and ultimate responsibility comes crashing in on a very confused Harry.

Told with an utterly compelling and exuberant sense of truth, Hide and Seek is a fresh debut of tense mystery, disarming humor, and remarkable compassion. Clare Sambrook's novel should find its place alongside other recent achievements in literary fiction such as The Lovely Bones and The Deep End of the Ocean.

"This taut, suspenseful debut novel narrated by a young boy takes as its premise the unthinkable and its aftermath: the disappearance of a child during a school field trip. Harry Pickles, a bright English lad 'aged nine and a bit,' is snuggly ensconced in a comfy bourgeois-bohemian family until his four-year-old brother, Daniel, vanishes at a rest stop. 'You are a boy. A kind boy. A clever boy.... It's not your job to be responsible for other people's lives,' the nice cop says, but Harry becomes consumed by survivor's guilt. As for the Pickles family, 'life dragged on.' But Sambrook tenderly documents a grieving process that fluctuates between the predictable and the bizarre: Harry gives himself a Christmas present of 'not feeling sad,' but hears a plaintive echo of 'You are not enough' in the wail of a passing train and almost stabs an innocent man to earn a friend's respect. But with the help of his ultracool firefighter uncle, as well as a few visits from Daniel's imaginary friend, Biffo, Harry learns to maintain a shaky composure in the face of life and his parents' horrifying breakdown. Sambrook's work is a smart addition to the genre of fiction narrated by precocious children forced to grow up too fast — a nuanced take on a nightmare. (July)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"Sambrook does an admirable job of capturing the sometimes disjointed and often raw thoughts of a nine-year-old in her moving debut." Kristine Huntley, Booklist

"My God, it is beautifully done, probably the best book of its kind since... The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time." The Observer

"Consistently engaging... Sambrook keeps the tone of her sad story light and dry and unsentimental, and her delight in Harry's exuberantly selfish voice seems genuine." The New York Times

"Sambrook's got a fine knack for chronicling and dramatizing the intense fluctuations — the pain, the rage, even the absurdity — of losing someone with whom one has shared a private world." San Francisco Chronicle

Told with remarkable compassion, tense mystery, disarming humor, and emotional clarity, this debut novel tells the story of a young boy who enters the adult world of police investigations when his younger brother vanishes.

Hide and Seek is Clare Sambrook's first novel. She lives in England, where she is working on her next book.