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About the Book

In post-war Flanders, Adelais de Wolf’s family is slowly, inexplicably, falling apart: her mother evermore lost to religious devotion, her father to alcohol. But with the death of a beloved uncle, Adelais finds herself in receipt of an unexpected legacy: a shuttered house in a rundown district and its contents – contents that hold the promise of independence and wealth. All that is required is application, nerve, and a willingness to break the law.

Adelais stifles her doubts and her fortunes are transformed. But with her rise come complications: her victimless crimes may not be as victimless as she supposed. Nor has she counted on the singular fanaticism of Major de Smet of the Federal Gendarmerie, a brutal detective who never forgives and never forgets.

Caught in a dangerous game of cat and mouse, will Adelais find that her new life comes at too high a price?

Format: Hardcover (416 pages) Publisher: Harvill Secker
Publication date: 23rd January 2025 Genre: Historical Fiction, Mystery

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My Review

I loved Philip Gray’s previous book Two Storm Wood set in the aftermath of WW1 which as well as depicting the horrors of war had elements of a thriller. This time we’re in Belgium in the years following WW2 with a story that is much more of a historical crime mystery but no less compelling.

Adelais, partially disabled by polio meaning she must wear a leg brace and use a stick, is a determined young woman. Her parents are each increasingly absorbed in their own mental turmoil for reasons she does not fully understand. Her father is neglecting his business and has turned to drink, and her mother has embraced a life of prayer and good works in an effort to seek forgiveness for some unknown sin. Only her Uncle Cornelius recognises Adelais has the necessary spirit to overcome the obstacles she faces, setting her challenges such as learning to use a handcycle. He describes them as kindred spirits and treats her as a kind of protege, seeing in her a strength of will her parents seem no longer to possess.

Adelais’s success gives her the confidence to tackle other challenges, such as learning to dance, although she also has another very particular reason for wanting to do this following a chance encounter. That encounter gives rise to a friendship and a shared dream but one which will require a huge amount of money to achieve. The property she inherits on the death of her uncle which, curiously, given its rundown state is protected by nine sturdy locks and latches, offers a means to achieve this. She sets about acquiring the skills required with the dogged determination her uncle must have hoped and planned for. It’s an activity that involves months of practice to achieve the necessary degree of perfection and, having mastered it, Adelais embarks on a criminal enterprise with the help of her friend Saskia for whom the whole thing is something of a lark. They have success beyond their wildest dreams but slowly things begin to fall apart.

Meanwhile Major de Smet of the Federal Gendarmerie is obsessed with a crime that has frustrated his efforts to solve it for years. It’s become a personal crusade, one he approaches with fanatical zeal spending hours poring over evidence he has accumulated and trying to detect patterns that will lead him to the culprit. His life in other respects has been a failure but solving this could bring him the recognition he craves. His superiors have come to think of it as a lost cause and a waste of police time but he’s determined to prove them wrong.

Although we always know more than both characters, the tension comes from Adelais never realising quite how close she becomes to being discovered and de Smet never quite realising how close he is to solving the case, or how easy it is to be distracted by prior assumptions.

By this time in the book you may have forgotten the events of the opening chapter but in a series of revelations we discover the answers to many things. It’s a brilliantly constructed bringing together of many threads in the story. But for Adelais, it sheds an entirely new – and unwelcome – light on the enterprise she has been engaged in leaving her with some difficult moral choices.

The House with Nine Locks is an enthralling historical mystery. I loved Adelais and the skilfully crafted plot kept me turning the pages, including looking out for the items that feature on the cover. (If you follow Philip on X or Bluesky, you’ll find other pictures relating to places and events in the novel.)

I received an advance review copy courtesy of Vintage via NetGalley.

In three words: Compelling, intricate, suspenseful
Try something similar: The Housekeepers by Alex Hay

About the Author

Philip Gray studied modern history at Cambridge University, and went on to work as a journalist in Madrid, Rome and Lisbon. He has tutored in crime writing at City University in London and serves as a director at an award-winning documentary film company, specialising in science and history. He lives in London.

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