Silent Voices (DI Lottie Parker #9) by Patricia Gibney
Genre: Crime fiction, Police procedural
Read: 30th January 2021
Published: 5th February 2021
★★★★ 4 stars
DESCRIPTION:
The words blurred as she read the note. She could feel her blood turning to ice. ‘Before you make the biggest mistake of your life, meet me. If you don’t, her blood will be on your hands.’
When Beth Mullen returns home, expecting to find her twin Rachel waiting for her, the silent house sends a shiver down her spine. She races upstairs to find her beautiful beloved sister cold in her childhood bed, her sparkling blue eyes closed forever, the morning after attending a glittering party…
Newly engaged Detective Lottie Parker knows that Rachel has been murdered the minute she enters the bedroom. Rachel’s neck is bruised and a shard of glass placed in her throat. Confronted with such a horrifying killing, Lottie wastes no time in pursuing every clue.
While interviewing the partygoers, Lottie discovers that Rachel’s handbag and keys are nowhere to be found. But as she is searching for them, a brilliant young doctor is found murdered with glass in her throat. The doctor was nowhere near the party and Lottie is forced to question everything. Two beautiful young women with the world at their feet have been brutally silenced. Why did the killer need them to die?
Desperate to find proof of what really happened to Rachel that night, Lottie gets close to the hostess of the party, whose two daughters were friends with Rachel. But Lottie’s hunt for the truth is getting under the killer’s skin, and when Lottie’s fiancé Boyd goes missing, will she be able to find him before it’s too late? Or will he too be silenced forever?
An unputdownable crime thriller from bestselling author Patricia Gibney, with an ending that will blow your mind. If you like Lisa Regan, Robert Dugoni and Rachel Caine you’ll be totally hooked by Silent Voices.
MY REVIEW:
I am excited to be taking part in the #BooksOnTour #BlogTour for Patricia Gibney's latest crime thriller SILENT VOICES.
It only seems like yesterday that I first met DI Lottie Parker, DS Mark Boyd and her team. And here we are at book 9! I may have missed a few in between the first books and where I next picked up with Lottie and Boyd, but it feels as though I have been with them every step of the way. And when a new book comes along it is always a treat to catch up with them all once again.
That being said, SILENT VOICES suffices quite well as a standalone (as does each book in this series) but as with all series it is always best to start from the beginning to get to know the characters and their backstories. Sure, I've missed a few pertinent happenings but I'm well caught up in the books that have followed since.
This 9th installment of the DI Lottie Parker series may be called SILENT VOICES, but I think "Silent Screams" might have been a better choice, given how the victims in the book died...which soon becomes clear.
For the past several books, we have been skirting around Lottie and Boyd's engagement and wonder are they ever going to get married? After all, the two certainly danced around the topic often enough. But finally, that day has arrived. After an opening which saw the death of a young boy being pushed to his death in a quarry, we then move on to the prologue which sees Lottie out of her standard jeans and shirt and wearing a chiffon dress in front of a mirror, pondering the day ahead. This is her wedding day! After a tumultuous week, she and Boyd were finally getting married! But when she walks outside and sees her daughters, her mother and Boyd's sister Grace standing together along with Kirby, acting as Boyd's best man, her stomach drops. Something has happened. Racing into the cottage where Boyd and Kirby were dressing for the ceremony, she finds a note addressed to "Mark Boyd" with a cryptic message inside...as the world suddenly goes black and Lottie falls to the floor.
Rewind a week earlier and Rachel Mullen attends a drinks networking gig at the newly opened Annie's Restaurant, owned and operated by Annie Fleming. The next day Rachel's twin sister Beth returns home from Dublin to find her dead, her back arched, her fingers clawing at her neck and her mouth opened in a silent scream. The cause of death returns as strychnine poisoning, a particularly nasty (and very painful) way to die. But who would want to kill Rachel? And in such a painful way? Who hated her that much? Lottie and her team pose the question to her devastated twin Beth who can think of no one. As the team dig into Rachel's background they discover that she was just starting her own cosmetics business which was to be sustainably sourced from organic products such as rock and stone...things found in a quarry. And then they learn that her meeting just prior to the drinks party she attended the night before at Annie's restaurant was with Matthew Fleming, Annie's estranged husband...and owner of a local quarry. Are the Flemings somehow linked to Rachel's death?
Then a couple of days later 15 year old Maddy Daly returns the bike she had borrowed from her friend Ellen Gormley, but upon getting no answer to her knock, goes inside. There she finds Ellen in a broken heap at the bottom of her stairs, her face in apparent agony and her mouth open in a silent scream. Toxicology comes back also as strychnine poisoning. But the time of death was at least 24 hours prior to Rachel's. Lottie must work out how the deaths of these two women are related...and where does young Maddy fit in, whom Boyd seems to have a soft spot for?
When a third woman is found in similar circumstances, Lottie realises she has her hands full...what with the investigation and Supt Farrell breathing down her neck. How is she to get this case solved and put to bed before her wedding in two days' time?
And then Lottie's sixteen year old daughter has an apparent new boyfriend whom she is yet to meet, and who she knows nothing about. But Chloe has been through a lot in the past five years since her father's death from cancer, as has the whole family, Lottie has given her daughter the freedom to work at a local pub and become her own person. It's her son Sean that is the worry for her. Her eldest Katie now lives in New York with her two year old son Louie, whom Lottie misses terribly. But they will be back for the wedding which she can hardly wait for - on both counts.
Then when there the massive storm that has been brewing all week hits on the Thursday and flooding half the town, Chloe rings Lottie in a panic because the hotel where the wedding reception is to be held has been flooded and they have no back-up plan! But then a though occurs to Lottie...however unethical it might be. She just wants to marry Mark Boyd.
There is so much going on in this book, but in a good way so you don't get confused. Murders, Maddy, weddings...with a bit of drug dealing and the odd quarry explosion not to mention the batch of shifty characters...there is everything in SILENT VOICES you need for another twisty suspenseful thriller. I love how the Lottie Parker series is not JUST a police procedural...but a crime thriller as well. You get to see the story from various perspectives without giving anything away. For me, this is the best kind of police procedural, as it keeps the pace going at the rate of knots.
I have loved to see Lottie grow into the woman she is now. I have to admit to not really liking her all that much when I first met her. She was stubborn (she still is) and a bit arrogant in wanting to get to the truth whatever the cost, whilst going home to down a couple of bottles of red or white or whatever was on offer. These days she has mellowed somewhat and I think Boyd has been good for her. I must admit to missing Boyd working alongside her in the previous couple of books, what with his receiving treatment for leukaemia. In the last book he was still there but not back at work yet, so it wasn't quite the same. The book before I don't recall him being around much at all and I must admit to missing him at Lottie's side. Together they make the perfect partnership...which begs the question, where will that leave them when they marry? Will their partnership be split after their marriage?
SILENT VOICES is a brilliant addition to the series and very probably the best yet...but that may be down to the return of Boyd to their partnership. I have no hesitation in recommending this book or the entire series for that matter. Should you choose to read this as a standalone, it can be done, but I do recommend starting from the beginning to appreciate the characters and their personal growths more.
Overall, a fast paced thriller that kept me turning the pages right up to the end. Thoroughly enjoyed it and welcome the return of Lottie and Boyd!
I would like to thank #PatriciaGibney, #NetGalley, #Bookouture for an ARC of #SilentVoices in exchange for an honest review.
MEET THE AUTHOR:
Patricia Gibney is an Irish author of crime fiction who sold 100,000 copies of her first crime thriller as an e-book, and had total sales exceeding 500,000 copies in 2018. By 2019, total book sales had passed one million.
Patricia is from Mullingar, County Westmeath and has lived there all her life. She spent 30 years working with Westmeath County Council.
When her husband died in 2009, aged 49, three months after a diagnosis of cancer, Patricia turned to art and writing, self-publishing a children's book entitled 'Spring Sprong Sally'. She then started writing crime fiction and created her first novel in that genre featuring DI Lottie Parker with 'The Missing Ones'. She worked with the Irish Writers Centre to improve her writing. Eventually she began a second novel 'The Stolen Girls' and through that acquired an agent and a publishing contract with Bookouture.
Patricia currently has 8 DI Lottie Parker novels to date, with the ninth 'Silent Voices' to be published in February 2021, and is set in the fictional Irish town of Ragmullin, which is an anagram of the real-life town of Mullingar, where Patricia lives.
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