Refreshing daring from young writer

The basis of The Mysteries is a little like that of Twin Peaks. A young woman, Alice Pederson, disappears in suspicious circumstances.

The Mysteries By Robert McGill, Jonathan Cape, €16.25

The basis of The Mysteries is a little like that of Twin Peaks. A young woman, Alice Pederson, disappears in suspicious circumstances. Two years later, her remains are dredged up froma lake.

Her apparent murder is the fulcrum of this ambitious first novel, which, chapter by chapter, probes the strange and sinister secrets of a small southern Ontarian town.

Robert and his partner are driving ...