In A Hiding to Nothing, Chhimi Tenduf-La delivers a slick, unsettling portrait of privilege, paranoia, and parenthood gone awry.
At once a domestic thriller and an incisive social commentary, the novel opens with a quiet horror: the sudden disappearance of Devin Pinto, a young boy snatched during a family outing outside Colombo.
But Tenduf-La resists sensationalism. No ransom notes. No dramatic police chase. Instead, readers are dropped into a chilling silence, one in which uncertainty becomes the dominant character.
Set against the ornamental backdrop of Sri Lanka’s high society, a world of manicured lawns, artfully concealed secrets, and emotionally hollow dinner parties, A Hiding to Nothing dissects what happens when appearance must be preserved at all costs. Neja and Ramesh, Devin’s anguished parents, choose discretion over justice.
The decision not to involve the police feels less like courage and more like capitulation to social expectation. Their fear of scandal is more visceral than their fear of loss.
It’s a story where everyone is watching, but no one is helping.
Tenduf-La excels at crafting morally compromised characters who remain maddeningly human. Neja, a mother devastated by guilt and suspicion, is at the centre of a web of uneasy relationships. Her intimacy with Devin’s swim coach, her animosity towards a domineering mother-in-law, and her guarded grief are all rendered with convincing fragility.
Ramesh, meanwhile, battles ghosts of a former Ponzi scheme, a plotline that feels less about finance and more about the cost of deceit.
The novel’s strength lies in how it builds tension not just from what happens, but from what doesn’t. The shadows are cast by suggestion: a British High Commission official whose questions seem just too knowing; a fertility specialist whose medical involvement feels too personal; and above all, the looming spectre of Satya Basu, a figure from the family’s past whose reappearance may be far more than coincidence.
Tenduf-La’s command over setting is sharp. Colombo and Durham aren’t just locations, they’re emotional atmospheres. The former carries the weight of surveillance and suffocating expectation; the latter, cold distance and new uncertainties.
The geographical movement mirrors the family’s psychological drift, the sense that wherever you go, your secrets will follow.
There’s an elegant control in the prose, too. Even amidst narrative propulsion, the writing pauses long enough to observe: the tremor in Neja’s voice, the clink of a teaspoon, the glint of accusation in an otherwise banal sentence.
These moments slow the pace without dulling the suspense, offering a human texture to the story’s brittle architecture.
Is the kidnapper even seeking revenge? Is the motive political, personal, psychological, or all three? Tenduf-La deliberately withholds clarity, keeping the reader in the same fog of speculation that grips his protagonists. The result is an atmosphere of dread, not drama.
Importantly, this is not merely a thriller. A Hiding to Nothing is a meditation on fear, how it seeps into marriages, how it shapes parental instinct, and how it alters our perception of morality. It asks: when faced with public shame or private grief, which do we run from faster?
As Devin’s absence grows heavier, Tenduf-La subtly shifts the story’s emotional balance. The mystery deepens, but so does the exploration of trauma and self-deception. Readers will come for the plot, but stay for the psychology.
In the end, A Hiding to Nothing is not just about a missing child. It’s about what happens to people when the truth becomes the most dangerous thing of all.
Chhimi Tenduf-La’s latest may be dressed as a thriller, but its deepest tension is internal, a finely tuned exploration of lives unravelling under their own weight.

Email:--------------------------daanishinterview@gmail.com