It is a long time since I have read a debut as impressive as Laura McHugh's The Weight of Blood. It is a chilling portrait of a small town in the Ozarks where violent men are protected and young women vanish.

One of the best thrillers of the summer and one of the best books of the year… Beautifully written and cleverly plotted with memorable, deftly drawn character, The Weight of Blood is an unmissable debut.

The Weight of Blood is an outstanding debut

excellent debut

Very accomplished technically, and a scary psychological study of an introverted rural community

There's a haunting, hypnotic, quality to this book that gives a splendid tautness as the secrets of a suspicious and inward-looking community isolated in a magnificent but dangerous – even deadly – landscape are uncovered. An accomplished debut.

an excellent story, told with well-fleshed, warmblooded characters that give colour and authenticity to the Ozark backdrop. It was a compelling read ... Marvellous. There is lip-licking anticipation for more from this first time author.

The Weight of Blood is a tense, taut novel and a truly remarkable debut ... The Weight of Blood rewards its readers with a suspenseful thrill ride that satisfies in all the right ways.

This is an outstanding first novel, replete with suspense, crisp dialogue, and vivid Ozarks color and atmosphere.

The prose is strong, with evocative paint strokes in all the right places. McHugh is an artful, efficient writer who tells her story in vicious blows ... McHugh has crafted a sharp, haunting tale of blood in the Ozarks, as substantial as it is pleasurable to read.

...it’s superb. Sentence after sentence reads like a gem. The dialogue is masterful. The characters are believable. The plotting is gripping ... The Weight of Blood constitutes first-rate literature

an incredible and multi-layered story woven to perfection by the author. Overall the book feels very authentic… The writing here is superb, very descriptive and of a very high quality I'd say it's one of the best written books that I've read so far this year. I will definitely be keeping an eye out for more from this author in the future… told in an intelligent and gripping way. Not a book to miss this one and very highly recommended

It may be McHugh’s debut psychological crime novel, but in my book, The Weight of Blood, puts this talented writer up there with the best of them. Inspired by a true story that took place in the town in the Ozark Mountains where McHugh spent part of her childhood, this gripping thriller bravely confronts the scandalous treatment of young women in modern-day America… A compulsive debut filled with suspense, this book leaves me wanting more from McHugh

A chilling psychological thriller with two distinct strands... This is tense, atmospheric stuff well told, an impressive debut

One of my favourite reads of last year, this is a well-written cleverly plotted and chilling story

Hidden's first chapter hooked me from the outset with its fast-paced writing and dramatic scene… This is an excellent well-written character-led psychological thriller.

Pitch perfect, addictive, fast-paced – Hidden is the thinking man’s thriller!

A brilliant whodunit… The story is told through a number of voices but manages to unfold coherently with suspense and subtlety. As suspicion falls on different heads, Seemingly unconnected happenings eventually combine to form a chilling, dangerous and dramatic climax. It's a thrilling book, with believable and engaging and rounded characters in a well described setting… definitely a book to look out for.

Horrific and heart pounding, it will draw you straight into the story and that will be that… It is all so addictive, so elegantly constructed and once again I found myself deep deep into the emotion of it… Turns out if anything this was better than Falling – certainly if you love a psychological crime thriller that is mostly character driven, you’ll love this. The ending was pitch perfect and may surprise you. Don’t miss it whatever you do.

It's hard to know where to start with a book like this. It starts off brilliantly, with probably one of the best openings to a book I have read this year… Hidden is an extremely thought-provoking book… Emma was an author to watch after the release of Falling, but that is the case even more now with Hidden and I can't wait to see what she writes next.

Everything about this book was tense. From the horrific opening via deep-rooted flashbacks that continue to resonate to the final so-quick-you-barely-have-time-to-catch-a-breath closing chapters, Hidden is a novel that keeps you on the edge of your seat through every word. Even the heatwave was palpable… Beyond the immediate gritty drama of the whodunnit driving the plot, this story also becomes about dealing with life or death situations and how they affect you. It’s a very clever, very well thought-out storyline, with plenty of red herrings acting as stumbling blocks on the reader’s quest to figure out the identity of the gunman before the characters do… Beginning at the end may usually be a sure-fire way of taking the thrill out of the story but here it just made the countdown all the more electrifying.

Hidden is plotted like the most addictive crime TV shows... The tense network of relationships between the characters, as well as the episodic plotting, really drive this book forward, and the author’s drip-feed of clues as to the shooter’s identity will keep you guessing about his identity, even as we see inside his head... a solid, tense read.

Emma Kavanagh tells this story with great verve, weaving the strands of her story expertly

An intelligent read

I loved Falling, Emma Kavanagh’s debut novel. With Hidden I feel she has taken it to the next level. Emma Kavanagh is bound to be a leading light in psychological thriller authors. This is gripping, compulsive read. If her next book is half as good as this one it will be a cracking read.

This book is a refreshing take on your traditional thriller. There is no lengthy police investigation after the event - instead, the entire book is devoted to events prior to the shooting. Less a 'who done it' than a 'who's going to do it?' And it works brilliantly, with Emma Kavanagh laying her bait cleverly. Just when you think you've worked everything out, she throws in a bit more information and you realise you're barking up quite the wrong tree. Hidden is a very well-written book, packed with detail yet remaining a book so easy to read that you could devour it in just a few greedy gulps. Dialogue is relevant and characterisation is excellent, making for a most enjoyable, and layered, read.

I think this is the first book I’ve read where the main police character is a Police Firearms Officer rather than a detective. This fresh angle really makes the story stand out, as does the rest of the brilliantly drawn characters and the complex relationships (and hidden secrets) they have with each other. It’s hard to go into detail about this book without giving away spoilers, but what I can say is that it’s a story that keeps you on your toes as a reader. I love books that keep me guessing and challenge me to work out who is responsible, and this story did just that. With several crimes taking place, multiple narrators giving glimpses into different elements of the story, and a super pacey non-linear timeline, the author cleverly ramps up the suspense and the mystery, and kept me guessing right to the end. This is a gritty, tense, twisty page-turner of a book – and a must read for crime and thriller fans.

A second novel is a tricky beast – can the author do it again? Can they build on the success of the first? Can it follow in the same genre without being too much the same?
Kavanagh has succeeded with Hidden when other authors have failed. Similarly to some series on television, the novel starts with the crime and then takes the reader back a stage, to the start of the action. Rather than peeling away the layers to get at ‘who dun it,’ Kavanagh builds up the layers, so that we get to the ‘why’ of ‘who dun it’. Clever stuff, with multiple viewpoints. Kavanagh uses her years of experience training police forces and military units on the psychology of life threatening incidents, to give credence to her work. The tension builds, and never lets up.
Let’s hope there’s another Kavanagh gem soon. Bravo.

The most cunning crime novels, like many of the greatest detectives, trick you into believing you’re smarter than them before pulling out the rug from under you. None more so than Hidden… Kavanagh is certainly deft, batting around the reader like a car with a caught mouse.

It’s clever, complicated and the characters are completely believable….Kavanagh is an original and interesting addition to the genre.