Hidden

★ ★ ★ 1/2
This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
—
Nicole Jones, née she-ain't-tellin'-you, is a fixture on Block Island – especially during tourist season, she's all over the island, leading bike tours. When she's not doing that she's painting (again, mostly for the tourists), or hanging out with some of her friends, relaxing and having a couple of beers. She's serious, she's responsible, she's down-to-earth – the kind of person you want as a neighbor, maybe even as a friend.

She's apparently pretty cagey about her past, letting her friends make some unfounded guesses about it, rather than just tell them anything. But she's pretty honest as a narrator – she's lived on Block Island for about 15 years with no problem,and she's not looking to make any changes. Nicole lets us know right up front that there's something dark and possibly shady, maybe even dangerous in her past, but that's behind her, another life.

And then she sees someone she recognizes. Not a local, not a tourist. Someone from before, and that just can't be good.

I'm sure you've heard the quip, “You're not paranoid if they really are out to get you.” This may be true – but it sure feels like it. It doesn't take long before Nicole is looking over her shoulder all the time, before she's wondering about every phone call, every sound on the street behind her, every face she doesn't instantly recognize. And Olson drags the reader into that same frame of mind, probably not to the extent as Nicole, but the same idea. The more worried, the more scared, the more freaked out Nicole is? The more the reader is.

As Nicole is forced to confront the things she ran away from, she starts to tell the reader about it, so that by the end of the book, we have a pretty good idea what exactly she did to make her leave it all and become Nicole. It's a nice counter-balance – as the tension mounts, more is revealed (which sometimes, makes things worse, I grant you). I didn't lose sleep over this one, but I sure postponed it as long as possible, I didn't want to put this down until Nicole was safe.

I thoroughly enjoyed Olson's Annie Seymour books, and my wife insists to this day that I missed out by not reading her Tattoo Shop mysteries (she's probably right), with Hidden she's doing something new. This doesn't feel anything like the Seymour books did, or the others looked – nothing against those, but she kicked it into a new gear here. I'd have been perfectly willing to read more in that other gear (and would be in the future), but wow, am I glad she found this one. I'm counting the days until the sequel.