Secret Shelter

Well-drawn characters and sophisticated storytelling distinguish Gittins’s second novel focusing on the Welsh Witness Protection Office (after 2013’s Gimme Shelter). The opening teaser—a report from family court about an unnamed child characterized as a “little monster”—sets the tone for the horrific, almost unbearable situations that follow. The prologue introduces Mo, a woman confined to a living hell in a hospital bed. An enigmatic stranger whom Mo met in a Cardiff restaurant slipped a drug into her drink that led her to reveal secrets of a safe house before leaving her completely paralyzed and unable to communicate. In the main narrative, a young mother, Kim, falls prey to an intruder, who sedates Kim and positions her in front of a video camera, which records her baby slowly dying from dehydration in a nearby crib, reflected in Kim’s eyes. And that’s all before Ros Gilet, a witness protection officer, must deal with a copycat murder. Minette Walters fans will find a lot to like. (Dec.)