Customer Reviews

Silence

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

One of the best suspense novels ever. Sit back and enjoy. I challenge you to put this book down. One terrific read. Practically read it in one sitting. My first Thomas Perry novel and a winner it certainly is.

Mr. Perry's latest put me in mind of the great (part) Native American dissappearance artist he has written so much about. Since I REALLY miss her it was a welcome part of the plot. A former cop, now private detective, helps a woman hide herself from a murdering music executive (who knew?)who kills her friend by accident. When her old boyfriend and ex-business partner gets accused of murdering her (a dastardly ploy to bring her out of hiding), the PI has a case of conscience (and the hots) and goes looking for her. Well, he convinces her to come back to give evidence that she is not dead to free the old boyfriend. Cue the assassins, who try to kill her and the PI at every turn. This is one of Mr. Perry's rich and varied character driven plots and you get to see into the psyches of all involved, which is what drives the book. From an insecure (and deranged) ex-porn star now assassin wife to an assassin husband team of two, to the really sociopathic music exec ("prince of darkness"), and the lonely ex-cop, this is a page turner! A must read.

Thanks to planted DNA evidence, the Los Angeles police are convinced that the book's leading lady was murdered by her former partner. She is still very much alive, in hiding from bad guys. Now you've got to wonder why, when she learns about the problem, does she not simply walk into a distant police station, explain the situation, and demand that they take a DNA scraping from her to send to the folks prosecuting her partner, as proof that she's still alive? And then go back into hiding? Why does she have to physically travel to L.A. to identify herself to the District Attorney prosecuting the case, and put herself very much in harm's way? Well, because if she did that, Mr. Perry wouldn't have a story to tell.

I've read all of Perry's books to date, and this was the first one that seemed flat-out stupid to me. Fun reading, but stupid.

Perry is such an excellent and entertaining writer that I will continue to buy his books. I submit this mostly unfavorable review to keep him from getting complacent and sloppy.

If I hadn't already read Thomas Perry's "Butcher's Boy" in the 80's (and loved it!), I wouldn't have been so prepared for the spastic silliness of this book, intertwined with lots of really nasty, violent people. In other hands, the juxtaposition of strange and comical characters with murder drama is a disaster (I'm thinking of Martha Grimes). In Silence, we have Wendy Harper, who is on the run from a shadowy bad guy who clearly wants her dead. So, with the help of nicely written retired-policeman-turned-PI Jack Till, she disappears. In order to fully protect her, he ensures that even he doesn't know where to find her. But six years later, Eric, her former partner in life and business, is charged with her murder and Jack must try to find her. Of course, Eric has been framed and the ultimate goal is to smoke Wendy out of hiding. And waiting for her is the wackiest pair of tango-dancing assassins you could ever imagine. We need a new word because narcissism doesn't even begin to describe these two.

And so we start off on a cross-country chase with the bad people aided and abetted by the rental car companies' vehicle tracking devices! The body count in any Thomas Perry book is unreal and the close calls mount up like chain reactions but the characters make up for the story flaws and serial coincidences.

This is not my usual fare but it is a short book, quick read, diverting detour!

While his latest books don't come up to the cannot-put-it-down standards of his Edgar winning "The Butcher's Boy," or "Metzger's Dog" or "Big Fish," Perry still keeps the pages turning.

Wendy Harper is your classic innocent victim. Trying to help out a friend, she attracted the attention of a killer and was forced to abandon her settled life and everyone she knew and loved in order to stay alive.

Six years later even the man who helped her do it, retired LAPD detective-turned-PI, Jack Till, doesn't know where she is. But he has to find her before an overzealous DA has her business partner and ex-fiancé, Eric Fuller, convicted of her murder. Till knows Fuller is being framed; he knows the killer has grown frustrated looking for her and has planted evidence to flush Harper out.

Till also knows he'll have hired killers on his tail as he looks for Harper and he does - the narcissistic and insecure Paul and Sylvie Turner. Perry crafts a twisting, turning track-and-chase that keeps Till barely ahead of the ruthless and astute Turners, while the resourceful Harper just eludes his grasp.

Psychological tension, technical expertise and slam-bang action scenes keep the pace up while Perry's characterizations give it some depth. There's an attraction between Till and Harper that goes back to their first meeting and smolders still. And of course there's a bit more to Harper's story than she initially shared.

The Turners - well, even their flaws and insecurities can't rouse any sympathy. However, they are plenty chilling and you can't help but wonder if they'll hold off killing one another in some viciously devious or disastrously impulsive manner until they get to the end of the story.

There are a couple of small holes, but you'll be enjoying the roller coaster ride so much, you'll hardly notice.

This is my first time reading a book by Thomas Perry. It was a real page turner. The suspense keeps building and I had to keep reading page after page, I could not put the book down. I need to read his other books now. If you like thrillers with interesting characters and fast paced books, pick this one up.

First Sentence: The small neon light outside that said BANQUE was turned off.

Ex-cop turned PI Jack Till helped Wendy Harper disappear after having been beat nearly to death. Her former lover and business partner has been arrested for her murder. The only way to prove him innocent is to prove Wendy is still alive. He's not the only one looking for her. Paul and Sylvie Turner are also looking for Wendy, but they want to make fiction a reality by killing her once and for all.

Perry's Jane Whitfield books are among my favorites. This was not. Why?: because I didn't care about any of the characters. Jack started out interesting; a divorced father who had raised his Downs' syndrome daughter. Unfortunately, that was the only real back story we received on him. Wendy was interesting except we had absolutely no definite idea from whom she was running. Paul and Sylvie were not interesting to me. I live in a city with way too many murders; the last thing I want is a book which makes the killers sympathetic. By page 119, I realized I just didn't care about the story, was skimming pages and decided to stop.