Book Review: The Hidden

Spoilers!

Life is an ever-changing, skin-shedding experience, stepping from one role into the next: child, adult, lover, parent, etc. Our mythology abounds with stories reflective of such transformations. Of Celtic origin are the selkies, beings who shapeshift between seal and human; their sealskin their portal between both — not quite the mermaid image we often conjure up. In a way more akin to the chameleon, a sociopath also steps into different roles befitting their deviancy. When a selkie and a sociopath meet on a beach in Melanie Golding’s 2021 novel, The Hidden, a modern mythos is created speaking to the power of motherhood, the pull of home, and the perversities of the sociopath.

Ruby has a complicated life: her mother, Jo, who is now a British police detective, was only 13 when she had Ruby. Jo’s mother effectively became Ruby’s mother and Jo the “older sister.” Marianne, though, is an alcoholic and in the course of her imbibing, tells Ruby she never should have been born. The start of the novel, then, sees Ruby estranged from Marianne, and somewhat still connected to Jo. The other thing we know about Ruby is that for some reason, she claims to be the mother of a little girl, Leonie, who showed up abandoned at a shopkeeper’s store, and furthermore, claims her name is Constance. Children’s protective services believes Ruby that Leonie bolted off and it was all a big misunderstanding. She goes off with the nearly 2-year-old girl.

Back with Jo, she’s on the case of a man, Gregor, who was left bloodied and near-to-death in his bathtub. It’s a peculiar case, though, since the bathroom was locked. Was it an accident? But the gash on the back of his head indicates foul play. Eventually, through Golding’s storytelling, we learn that Ruby is connected to Gregor. In fact, she lives across from Gregor in another building. Over a matter of weeks, they became closer and closer to the point where Gregor introduced Ruby to his former girlfriend and daughter, who live with him, Constance and Leonie. Now, I’m wondering what the heck is going on: How did Gregor end up in the bathtub nearly dead, and Ruby taking over the childcare of Leonie at the start of the novel?

But as the story progresses, Ruby realizes Gregor is nothing like the persona he presents: a yoga and classical music fiend, who is nerdy and shy. Rather, he’s abrasive and abusive toward Constance and Leonie, effectively holding them hostage in his home that is soundproofed, with cameras and motion detectors everywhere. Come to find out, he’s even been tracking Ruby’s every move. That’s when Ruby and Constance start conspiring to escape from Gregor with Leonie. There is a catch, however: Constance is a selkie. She’s half-seal, half-woman and she needs her sealskin to return home. Gregor made it seem like Constance was a madwoman claiming to be a selkie, with the sealskin Gregor took from her, and was obviously the product of an indoctrinating cult. Ruby knows better now, especially after she helps Constance find the sealskin, which actually does seem … magical in a way. The reason Constance even met Gregor is that during the winter solstice, the selkie tradition is for the woman soon-to-be-married to have sex with an Outsider. That Outsider happened to be Gregor. The Outsider holding hostage a selkie who births his children, but who yearns to return to the sea, is a story that dates back to at least 1870, “The Mermaid Wife,” which was Golding’s inspiration for her book.

Golding’s book really ramps up when Gregor is revealed not to be Gregor at all, but some mysterious man, who is clearly a sociopath. He escapes from the hospital despite his injured head and the drugs in his system. He’s after Constance, Ruby, and Leonie. Thankfully, Jo and her police partner are also hot on their trail to intercept him. My favorite little detail in the book might have been when Gregor was on a ferry with Ruby and Leonie (unbeknownst to them) and he was incessantly seasick. The juxtaposition of that with Constance’s yearning for the sea, and a return to her home and people, was poignant.

Ultimately, Gregor is able to track down Ruby and Leonie, who are meeting up with Constance near her home. He threatens to kill Leonie. In fact, he was prepared to kill all three with “salt baths” before they conspired against him. It was Constance who bashed him over the head with a shell and then tried to drug him with the same drug he’d been drugging her (and Leonie) with. Constance, reminded of her duty to sacrifice herself, if necessary, for her child by Ruby, does just that. She offers the sealskin to Gregor in exchange for Leonie because Gregor knows Constance can’t go anywhere without it. Ruby takes Leonie just as Jo arrives on the scene. Then, Constance rushes Gregor, again surprising the overconfident sociopath, and they both plunge off a cliff into the sea. Gregor’s body washes up later; Constance’s is never found and the people of the island, knowing she’s a selkie, believe it never will be.

As for Ruby, she’s devastated at first that Leonie is adopted by someone else instead of her, but she comes to accept it seeing how happy she is, and even is pregnant with her own child by the end of the book. Her grandmother, Marianne, is also a few months sober and they’re mending their relationship.

Golding’s book was clever in the way she built up to the true reality of Gregor’s identity and motives. Ruby was so isolated by choice with her estrangement, and Constance and Leonie always had been, I began wondering how they would get out from under Gregor’s controlling thumb. The fact that he proved to be a formidable threat even after put to the precipice of death by Constance made for a thrilling, heart-pounding third act. Before I even wrote this review, I already added Golding’s two other books to my to-be-read pile because I so enjoyed this one.