Three characters risk falling off a cliff

The only thing cozy about British writer Araminta Hall is her name.

No lush English garden mystery for her. No table set for tea – well sugared, of course – in delicate floral cups and saucers.

A truer picture of her work, as well as of her latest psychological thriller, “One of the Good Guys,” is a bleak, windswept landscape crumbling into a churning sea, with looming dread and the threat of violence.

Which is where Cole’s broken marriage has brought him, a remote stretch of coast in the south of England. He has chucked his London office gig to become a wildlife ranger, a job that comes with a cottage near the sea where he hopes to commune with nature and heal. Confused and depressed, he mulls what went wrong. He is one of the good guys, after all, the kind who cherish the women in their lives. How could his wife, Mel, have left him?

Cole isn’t looking for romance but he can’t help himself when he meets a woman named Lennie, an artist renting an old coast guard cottage atop a cliff. It’s in danger of falling, too – not in love, but into the sea. Erosion is a big problem along the coast and, as you may have guessed, has a role to play in “Good Guys.” Warnings are ubiquitous and let’s just say they should be heeded, metaphorically, too.

Running parallel to Cole’s story is a Walk for Women that has captured the nation’s attention but not always in a good way, evidenced by internet trolls. One called “Maninthewild” is particularly put out by the two 23-year-olds walking and camping along the coast, a monthlong effort to raise awareness of violence against women. “Hope you get raped on your stupid walk,” he posts on Instagram. Not long after, the two women go missing.

Hall interweaves Cole’s, Mel’s and Lennie’s points of view, filling in plot gaps with newscasts, articles, interviews and social media posts – an overworked structure, perhaps, but effective in “Good Guys” because social media’s repercussions is a theme, as is gender and power imbalances.

It’s clear, however, that Hall’s interests lie in plumbing the depths of her characters’ psyches. She drills down, down, down into her characters’ psychological murk – a veritable Mariana Trench’s worth – discovering unsavory elements as she goes and relating it all in sometimes excruciating detail.

Too much information? Occasionally. But no characters are left unscathed, and the outcome is never less than riveting.