Hidden Pictures

This book was a 2022 Goodreads Award winner in the category of Best Horror.

From Edgar Award-finalist Jason Rekulak comes a wildly inventive spin on the supernatural thriller, for fans of Stranger Things and Riley Sager, about a woman working as a nanny for a young boy with strange and disturbing secrets.

Mallory Quinn is fresh out of rehab when she takes a job as a babysitter for Ted and Caroline Maxwell. She is to look after their five-year-old son, Teddy.

Mallory immediately loves it. She has her own living space, goes out for nightly runs, and has the stability she craves. And she sincerely bonds with Teddy, a sweet, shy boy who is never without his sketchbook and pencil. His drawings are the usual fare: trees, rabbits, balloons. But one day, he draws something different: a man in a forest, dragging a woman’s lifeless body.

Then, Teddy’s artwork becomes increasingly sinister, and his stick figures quickly evolve into lifelike sketches well beyond the ability of any five-year-old. Mallory begins to wonder if these are glimpses of a long-unsolved murder, perhaps relayed by a supernatural force.

Knowing just how crazy it all sounds, Mallory nevertheless sets out to decipher the images and save Teddy before it’s too late.

My Verdict

This is the type of thriller with a supernatural edge to it which would be popular with readers like me who are not attracted to more traditional horror fiction. As its publicity promises, it is an easy-to-read dark thriller. Stephen King describes it as a clever page-turner which is hard to put down, demanding 100% of your attention. Due to some clever twists, plot shifts and sneaky misdirection I read this book in one day.

The author balances a potential supernatural storyline with a main character who is not quite an unreliable narrator. This first-person narrative of the main character Mallory, a young woman in early recovery from drug addiction. As a teenager, she had a promising career as a distance runner, which was cut short by an accident, then addiction to painkillers which spiraled to much harder drugs followed. When the novel opens, Mallory is about to be interviewed as a live-in nanny for four-year-old Teddy. The development of this character is the books first strength.

But things do not remain peaceful for long, as soon Teddy starts to draw disturbing pictures of an imaginary friend he calls Anya. It is quite clear to Mallory and to Teddy's parents, even in his crude childlike style, that the woman Teddy is drawing in his pictures is dead. Soon, the pictures begin to get more and more sophisticated and Mallory takes her concerns to Teddy’s parents. From that moment on, things begin to get extremely complicated and nothing is quite what it seems. I thought the character of Teddy was equally well developed.

The author did a terrific job of keeping me on the hook and I loved the manner in which the drawings are added seamlessly into the story, magnifying Mallory’s fears. The interactions between the four characters are also terrific. Ted and Caroline as Mallory’s employers hold all the power, but her obsession with the drawings trumps even that.

I appreciated the twists lurking within the tightly written story. Overall, I thought this book was well written and I couldn't wait to get to the end to find out what was going on. I give this book 5 stars.