About The Silent Children
The boy studied the bruise turning yellow at the base of his neck. With quick fingers his mother tightened his tie, and pulled his collar high above it. Her eyes alone said, We will not speak of this...
Years later, a man is found shot dead in a local park. On his phone is a draft text: I can’t keep this secret any longer. The recipient is unnamed.
Detective Robyn Carter knows this secret is the key to the case, but his friends and family don’t offer any clues, and all her team have to go on is a size-ten footprint.
Then a woman is found in a pool of blood at the bottom of her staircase, and a seemingly insignificant detail in her stepdaughter’s statement makes Robyn wonder: are the two bodies connected, and has the killer only just begun?
When another body confirms Robyn’s worst fears, she realises she’s in a race against time to stop the killer before they strike again. But just as she thinks she’s closing in, one of her own team goes missing.
Buried in the past is a terrible injustice. Can Robyn uncover the truth before another life is lost?
My review of The Silent Children
The Silent Children is the fourth book in the excellent Detective Robyn Carter series that is set in Staffordshire. I have been a huge fan of these books from the very beginning and I really enjoyed this one. I will just mention that this book will work very well as a standalone novel.
The Silent Children kicks into action when a man is found shot dead, in his car on Cannock Chase. What makes this opening chapter even more disturbing is that it is a small child who finds the dead man, and it is this beginning that both chilled me and encouraged me to carry on reading. Who was this man and who shot him? I also wanted to find out how finding the man affected this little boy and his family. This is exactly what Robyn and her team set out to discover.
The pace and tension then picks up when the body of a woman is found. Are the two incidents connected? This is what Robyn needs to find out, and the hunt is soon on for a serial killer. As ever, we stumble across many suspects and I enjoyed the various leads that the team investigated.
Running alongside the main plot is another story, that of an unknown author who tells the story of his abusive childhood. These passages I found very difficult to read, but completely understood that they were needed to fulfil the story as a whole. I also feel that the author tackles this subject with great empathy and sensitivity.
We then also have the ongoing drama of Robyn's dead fiancé, Davies, the thread of this story was left hanging midair at the end of the last book. This backstory fascinated me and I felt that it shed great insight into Robyn's character. What this author also does so well, is that all of these various storylines eventually come together to explain exactly what happened.
The Silent Children is a book full of hidden secrets that Robyn and her wonderful team have to unearth, and I enjoyed following them down dead ends until the final reveal. It is a gripping thriller of a read.
With thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an Advanced Reader Copy.
The Silent Children is published by Bookouture on 7 Dec. 2017 and can be found on Amazon here.
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