The Price of Silence
Non-series
Camilla
Trinchieri
Soho Press (Hardcover)
ISBN-10: 1-56947-458-3 (1569474583)
ISBN-13: 978-1-56947-458-7 (9781569474587)
Publication Date: June 2007
List Price: $22.00
Synopsis (from
the publisher): Having taken a young Chinese woman under her wing,
teacher Emma Perotti finds herself on trial for the girl's murder.
Almost five years earlier, An-ling Huang walked into Emma's ESL
classroom and into her family's life. Emma was drawn to the
vulnerability she perceived in An-ling. An-ling, for her part, seemed
to long for a surrogate mother and eagerly attached herself to Emma.
Emma's husband, Tom, resented An-ling's intrusion and his wife's
affection for her. Their son, Josh, developed his own relationship with
her. Dredging up painful memories and buried grief, An-ling's presence
threatened to tear the family apart.
Then An-ling is found dead, suffocated. As Emma's trial progresses,
An-ling is revealed not to have been who she claimed, and we learn that
the family members all have their own dark secrets.
Review:
Camilla Trinchieri's electrifying stand-alone thriller, The Price of
Silence, is a tense psychological study involving lies,
secrets, and
ultimately murder.
Emma Perotti is teacher of English as a second language to foreign
students and new citizens. She is happily married to her husband Tom
and they have a 16-year-old sold Josh. When a young Asian artist named
An-link comes to Emma’s class, Emma immediately senses a need
in An-ling for something more than lessons in English and soon realizes
that An-ling wants and needs a mother’s love, understanding
and support which she feels she can give her. But Tom is resentful of
their relationship and orders Emma to stop seeing An-ling. Josh, on the
other hand, thinks An-ling is the most beautiful creature he has even
seen and would like to see her more often. When An-Ling is found dead
in her loft, evidence points to Emma who was there the day she died.
She is arrested and accused of her murder. But, it is later revealed,
Tom and Josh had also visited An-Ling on the day of her death.
The Price of
Silence has a moving backstory that plays an important
role in how the current events are playing out. Told in flashback, Emma
and Tom's first child, a girl named Amy, was killed when she was just 2
years old in a tragic accident when a car driven by Emma rolled over
her. Emma and Tom sold their home and moved away, burying not only Amy
but every memory they ever had of her. When Josh was born, he was never
told of Amy. After An-Ling came into their lives, Josh sees a dramatic
change in both his parents but is confused as to why they're acting
this way.
During the course of Emma's trial, itself often riveting reading, the
author successfully keeps the suspense level high by intermixing what Emma, Tom, and Josh are thinking and
feeling, including some of their innermost secrets. Frequently
heart-breaking but always insightful, The Price of Silence
is an incredible journey of one family that cannot escape the tragedy
of their past.
Special thanks to guest reviewer Betty of The Betz Review for contributing her review of The Price of Silence and to Soho Press for providing the trade paperback edition for this review.
Review Copyright © 2008 — Hidden Staircase Mystery Books — All Rights Reserved.
Omnimystery keywords for The Price of Silence
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Location(s) referenced: Manhattan, New York City.