Tangled Web UK Review February 2008
Silence by
Thomas Perry
pbk out March 08
(Quercus)
at £6.99
Thomas Perry seems to have had the classic upbringing for a certain type of author, mixing higher education with manual labour. Born in 1947, he has worked as a maintenance man, a factory worker, a fisherman, but also has a PhD in English. He has also been writer and producer for prime time network TV shows. He was awarded an Edgar for The Butcher's Boy, winning Best First Novel.
In the late nineties, Perry wrote the Jane Whitefield series, but now seems to be concentrating on one-off novels. Silence is the latest published in the UK, though there is another one – Fidelity – due in America in 2008.
Jack Till is an ex-cop turned PI, working in Los Angeles. Six years earlier, he helped a woman called Wendy Harper to disappear. She had been beaten up, and only escaped death by chance. She had suspicions about the disappearance of one of the waitresses at the restaurant she ran with her then boyfriend, Eric Fuller. Rather than go to the police, she decided to vanish.
Now someone seems to want to find her again. Eric Fuller has been framed for her murder by means of the bloodied baseball bat used to beat up Wendy. Jack Till must find her again and get her to come out into the open to avoid Fuller being convicted of her murder. The trouble is, he has taught her too well, and she is untraceable. But it is not only Jack Till who is on her trail. Paul and Sylvie Turner, professional assassins, have been given a new assignment by their contact, lawyer Michael Densmore. He is being paid to arrange the death of Wendy Harper.
The novel then becomes a two-stranded search for Wendy. In the process we learn about Till's own life, and even more interestingly the strange lives of the two killers. Sylvie can never quite convince herself that Paul is devoted to her, and by the very nature of their jobs, imagines he might murder her one day. Paul cannot understand Sylvie's jealousy. Slowly, by twists and turns, Perry leads us along a trail of discovery that intrigues doubly. Not only must we work out where Wendy is, and who she has become – along with Till we must try and discover who wants Wendy dead and why. Perry holds our attention from start to finish as Till is chased across America by the assassins, death and mayhem in their wake. Well-paced but breathless, this novel will grip you from the attack on Wendy Harper to its exciting conclusion. The characters are so well-rounded that we are left wanting more, especially of the chilling but believable Turners. What a pity Perry isn't writing series now, we need to know more of this pair of tango-dancing killers.
(
Ian Morson
Author of Falconer books and short listed for 1999 Ellis Peters Historical Crime Dagger)
Thousands of New and used Books at your Fingertips...
Support Tangled Web - Buy Your Books Online
