HIDE & SEEK

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)