Silence
Review: In Thomas Perry's new thriller, Silence, Wendy Harper and her ex-boyfriend/best friend, Eric Fuller are the owners of an upscale restaurant in Los Angeles where Wendy is the manager and Eric is the prize-winning chef. On her way home from the restaurant one night she is accosted at her front door, beaten with a baseball bat to her legs and body and fists to her face. Her attackers leave her for dead. She survives, however, and when she recovers she hires private investigator Jack Till to help her run away. Jack, who had retired recently from the police force, suggested that she contact the police, but she is so afraid that another attempt on her life, or maybe someone she loved, would be made again.
Finally Jack agrees. He tells her all she must do and must not do to be successful. She must change her identity and go to a place where no one would think she would possibly go. She could tell no one, not even him, what her plans are. She leaves and was not heard from again …until Eric is framed for her murder.
Even though there is no body and scant evidence, Eric is arrested. Jack sets out on his journey to find Wendy so Eric could be cleared. But what Jack did not know was that the men who wanted her dead six years ago still want her dead. These men hire married Tango-loving assassins Sylvie and Paul Turner to finish the job for them. Meanwhile, Jack enlists the help of his police buddies, and uses every tactic and method he knows to try to find her before the assassins do. Sylvie and Paul track down Jack and follow him wherever he goes, killing anyone and everyone who gets in their way.
Although Silence is a fairly long book, Perry keeps the plot moving along at a very fast pace. The reader's interest is piqued on nearly every page when new characters are introduced, some of which are vital to the story, and others who are merely incidental. Though the story follows both Jack's and the Turner's pursuit of Wendy, it is the latter that is somewhat more interesting, with Perry tempering the suspense with bits of tongue-in-cheek humor.
Certainly one of the best mysteries to be published this summer, Silence will keep the reader enthralled to the very end.
Special thanks to guest reviewer Betty of The Betz Review for contributing her review of Silence.
Acknowledgment: Harcourt provided a copy of Silence for this review.
Review Copyright © 2007 — Hidden Staircase Mystery Books — All Rights Reserved
Selected reviews of other mysteries by this author … The Informant Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (Hardcover), May 2011 ISBN-13: 9780547569338; ISBN-10: 0547569335
Location(s) referenced in Silence: Los Angeles, California
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Silence by Thomas Perry
Publisher: Harcourt
Format: Hardcover
ISBN-13: 978-0-15-101289-3
Publication Date: July 2007
List Price: $25.00
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Page Author: Lance Wright Site Publisher: Mysterious Reviews
Mysterious Reviews is a Division of The Hidden Staircase Mystery Books and a Business Unit of the Omnimystery Family of Mystery Websites
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