The Silence by Alison Bruce

Accident, suicide, murder.  What if they are all connected?  And suppose it isn't over?

Joey McCarthy is stabbed to death in a seemingly random act of violence.  Soon afterwards Matt Stone's terminally ill mother dies and his best friend's sister commits suicide.  When he and close friend Libby move into a shared house with five other students they hope to leave the tragic events in their past.

But within weeks DC Gary Goodhew finds the body of another suicide victim, leading him to Matt and Libby, and to his own deeply buried memory of a previous case.  And there is little to connect the deaths except the creeping feat that someone else is going to die.

The Silence was published in paperback by C&R Crime : Constable & Robinson on 18 July 2013 and is the fourth in the DC Gary Goodhew series, set in Cambridge.  I've been a fan of this series since the first book, Cambridge Blue (2008), this was followed by The Siren (2010) and The Calling (2011).

There are many fictional detectives, but there is nobody quite like Gary Goodhew.  Still only 27 years old, his character has slowly developed over the series and Alison Bruce is teasing her readers by revealing just a few little snippets into his past with each new story.  Goodhew is something of an enigma, a real closed book who only ever really confides in his grandmother.  He is sensitive and quite guarded, but seems to be very slowly opening up - the hints to his past are quite tantalising.

This is another quite complicated and elaborate plot, with many characters and deaths that at first do not seem to be connected.  However, Goodhew and his colleague Sue Gully are working well together and between them they come to realise that each one of these seemingly random deaths are intricately linked together.  Goodhew and Gully have a natural and quite trusting working relationship, Goodhew seems totally unaware that Gully has a massive crush on him, which makes her more determined to show her worth.

Alison Bruce has written another compelling story.  This has an ingenious plot line that needs some concentration to follow at times, but is still quite brilliant to read.   The tension rises to an almost unbearable pace towards the close of the story, with a pretty remarkable ending.

This series really does get better with each book, I'm looking forward to reading The Backs which is the next in the series.

My thanks, as always to the team at C&R Crime who sent my copy for review.

Alison Bruce was born in Surrey but moved to Cambridge in 1998 where she lives with her husband and two children.  The first novel in the Gary Goodhew series, Cambridge Blue was published in 2008, followed by The Siren, The Calling and The Silence.  She has also written two true crime books. 


For more see www.alisonbruce.com  or follow on Twitter @alison_bruce