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32 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Marriage can be murder., July 7, 2007
Thomas Perry's "Silence" starts with a bang when Wendy Harper, co-owner of a trendy Los Angeles restaurant, leaves work well after midnight. Upon arriving home, she is attacked by a man with a baseball bat who nearly beats her to death. Wendy knows who is behind the attack, and she decides that it would be prudent to leave the past behind and start fresh somewhere else under an assumed name. She hires forty-year old private investigator Jack Till, a former cop with twenty years on the force, to help her establish a new identity. For six years, there is silence. Suddenly, everything changes when Eric Fuller, Wendy's former partner and boyfriend, is falsely accused of murdering Wendy to collect on her life insurance policy. Till decides that, in good conscience, he must find Wendy and convince her to come forward to save Eric from prosecution. However, since the person who tried to kill Wendy is still at large, she might be reluctant to once again make herself a target.
"Silence" is an entertaining psychological thriller with a lively cast of characters, a serpentine plot, and a particularly cold-blooded husband and wife hit team. Sylvie and Paul Turner, who have been married for fifteen years, are sociopaths who kill for money and thrills; their efficiency and meticulous attention to detail have earned them a devoted clientele. However, they are paranoid and tend to find fault with one another; their marriage is, in some ways, more hellish than heavenly. A wealthy and powerful individual has hired the Turners to lure Wendy out of hiding and finish her off. If Jack convinces Wendy to reveal herself, she may very well be the Turners' next victim.
Jack Till has been lonely for a long time. His wife left him after she gave birth to a little girl, Holly, who has Down syndrome. Jack is devoted to his daughter; she has developed into a self-sufficient, happy, and productive young woman. However, he has never remarried and although he was attracted to Wendy when she first appealed to him for help, he never acted on his feelings. He uses his savvy as an investigator to locate Wendy and they reconnect emotionally, but Till has his hands full staying one step ahead of their clever, ruthless, and determined pursuers.
Perry steadily ratchets up the suspense as Till and Wendy attempt to evade the relentless Turners. Till is uneasy because he suspects that there is a great deal more to Wendy's story than she is willing to reveal. Who exactly wants her dead and why? Jack suspects that she is hiding vital information from him. Meanwhile, Sylvie and Paul become irritable when killing Wendy proves to be more difficult than they anticipated.
Thomas Perry explores the unfortunate choices that people make and their attempts to redeem themselves before it is too late. He provides the back stories of both the heroes and their adversaries and skillfully fleshes out their personalities and motives. Everything comes to a head in a wild and exciting conclusion that is satisfying, unpredictable, and laced with delicious irony. "Silence" is a sardonically witty and compulsively readable thriller.
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20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
(3.5) "Never let yourself get two steps inside the front door if you can't already find the back door.", July 3, 2007
After being beaten nearly to death one night in LA, Wendy Harper goes to the office of Jack Till, ex-police, current PI. Since flight is the only option Wendy will consider, Jack helps the battered young woman to disappear. Six years later, Wendy's former fiancé and restaurant co-owner, Eric Fuller, is charged with her murder after blood evidence is found buried in his back yard. Till immediately goes to the DA prosecuting the case and informs her that Wendy has gone into hiding. The DA refuses to believe Jack unless she can actually see Wendy, so the PI joins with Fuller's attorney, placing ads in the personals in hopes of a response. When the ads are unsuccessful, Jack Till goes on the hunt for a woman he has taught the finer points of life on the run. Convinced that the evidence was planted to draw Wendy out of seclusion, Jack knows that the man who contracted the first attempt is likely behind the newly discovered evidence; Wendy is in considerable danger, at large or in LA.
The individual behind the threats to Wendy's life remains a mystery, his lawyer serving as go-between to hire a hit team, a married couple, Paul and Sylvie Turner, whose favorite occupation, other than murder, is dancing, particularly the seductive, demanding moves of the tango. Paul and Sylvie have been watching Till, delighted when he is finally on the move in a cat-and-mouse game that will take them from Las Vegas to northern California, and a series of car rental agencies and hotels, Jack doing his best to elude the pros, but barely a step ahead. Things turn violent sooner than Till expects, the killers thorough and relentless, albeit increasingly frustrated by Jack's dodges. Once Till locates Wendy, the stakes get higher, the hunters closing in on their prey and anxious to finish a messy case, retrieve their hard-earned reward and move on.
The person behind the plan to take out Wendy Harper, and his reasons, remain mysterious until complications force him to surface; by that time, dead bodies are everywhere, from back alleys to hotel rooms, Till determined that Wendy won't be one of them. The story remains interesting but veers off into stereotypical territory when addressing the Hollywood scene. While the characters stand up well in the plot of a thriller, their back stories make them less plausible, especially the heartless, somewhat inefficient assassins and the man behind the threats. While the story is more interesting, by humanizing these characters they seem less believable, their personal histories filled with unlikely scenarios. The result is that it is hard to take the threatening characters seriously, their backgrounds not quite sinister enough, merely haphazard. Overall, Perry has crafted an intricate mix of mayhem, extravagance and costly blunders, unpredictable to the end. Luan Gaines/2007.
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Classic Perry -- runs like clockwork and you can see the little gears spin, July 26, 2007
If you've never read a Thomas Perry book, then assume my rating is five stars, because every Thomas Perry book is like a meal at a really good restaurant, always well prepared and tasty, sometimes sublime.
With Perry, you never have to worry about flat writing or endings that seem written in desperation. He's a master craftsman who knows how to build a really great tale with unique characters and outcomes. I buy everyone of his books in hardcover in advance because I know I will read them more than once and loan them to my friends.
I gave this book four stars because, although this is a fine story, I've been there when he's dished sublime. When he's sublime, there's also quirky humor and the ability to get inside the heads of people we'd ordinarily loathe.
I long for him to push the edge, go into some part of reality that he's not so comfortable with and tht I'm not sick of. A protagonist who's an old lady, an updated Miss Marple, or a kid, or an immigrant, someone who's not incredibly fit and lovely. The market is saturated with those. It would take somebody with his skills to pull that off. He's good enough to do stuff that other writers can't.
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