The Silent Mother by Liz Lawler
Genre: Psychological thriller, Suspense
Read: 2nd October 2021
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Published: 8th October 2021
★★★ 3 stars
DESCRIPTION:
The phone rings. It’s the call every parent dreads. My beautiful son is dead.
He’d been the centre of my world from the moment he was born. Now my perfect life is shattered. In the midst of my grief, I receive an anonymous letter telling me that Tom’s death was not an accident.
So I’ve come to the apartment where my only child lived to find out what really happened. Tom was newly qualified as a doctor, he had a bright future ahead of him. Nothing about the day he died makes sense.
As I get to know the medical staff Tom worked with and his friends living nearby, I’m drawn into a tangled web of lies. Whispers and rumours circulate along the hospital corridors and I start to question how well I really knew my precious boy.
But a mother knows when things don’t add up.
His girlfriend has been keeping her pregnancy secret.
His best friend betrayed him in the weeks before Tom’s death.
His neighbours all have something to hide.
Which one of them would kill? As I get closer to the truth, the stakes become more dangerous. And I realise I could be next on their list…
MY REVIEW:
I am excited to be taking part in the #BooksOnTour #BlogTour for Liz Lawler's engrossing thriller THE SILENT MOTHER.
Firstly, I'm not sure where the title comes from as the mother is anything but silent as she endeavours to clear her son's name. However, the journey upon which she embarks to do so is fraught with obstacles along the way drawing the tale out a little bit too much. That said, it was an engrossing read but not entirely addictive.
The story begins with Ruth, a doctor and partner of a practice in Bath, receiving a text from her son Thomas, a junior doctor, outlining his appearance in court the following day and asking her to be there. Ruth knows nothing of the crime with which he's been charged or what to expect from the hearing, so she embarks on the trip to Bournemouth a day early in the hope of catching Thomas that he might further explain his predicament. Unfortunately she wasn't able to raise him and spent a restless night in the hotel adjacent to the Crown Court in which he was to appear the following day.
Arriving at court, she meets his Barrister and his solicitor who fill her in on the details of his case. Thomas, it appears, was arrested for not only stealing drugs from the hospital in which he worked but for the assault of a security guard who had tried to restrain him when he became aggressive. Ruth is shocked. This doesn't sound like her son at all. Not because she's his mother, but because anyone who knew him would know it was completely out of character. His behaviour explained by the amount of midazolam in his system at the time of his arrest. Believing this to be the beginning of a trial, Ruth is further shocked to learn that Thomas had plead guilty and that this was in fact a sentencing hearing. What had happened to her sweet placid boy to turn him into someone she doesn't recognise?
But this is just the beginning of the mystery because Thomas, it seems, has failed to turn up for court and the natives are growing restless. Just as Ruth was losing all hope that things might turn around for her son, she sees the look pass between the barrister and solicitor...and her day, her world, goes from bad to worse. Thomas has been found in his flat having taken his own life.
Four months later, Ruth returns to Bournemouth in search of answers. She had received an anonymous letter pleading with her to come and clear Thomas' name though she has no idea who it is from. Having kept the rent paid up on his flat, she moves in and takes a job as a locum GP at a nearby thriving practice for the interim. No one knows she is Thomas' mother, having not married his father she retained her maiden name, Bennett, whilst Thomas was given his father's name of DeLuca. Her first port of call was to find the nurse who had reported the incident that had kicked off at the hospital resulting in Thomas being arrested in the first place. But when she tried knocking on her door, there was no answer. This nurse would hold the answers as to what happened to Thomas that day.
Throughout the course of her enquiries, Ruth meets her neighbours - Kim, Akito and Tilly - and her landlord Henry, with whom she begins a friendship. He is supportive and shares her belief that all that was alleged about Thomas was completely out of character for him. She comes across his diary and as painful as it is, she finds solace in his writings...despite some of them being drunken ramblings of frustration at an incident that had occurred with another nurse. It is through this diary she learns of his girlfriend referred to only as C. Talking to his friends and neighbours, Ruth discovers that they too saw Tom as an upstanding person full of compassion and integrity. So if all this that Ruth believes to be true, then someone else may well be responsible for his death...whether directly or indirectly. But will her digging put her in danger as well?
Alongside the main story is one of Rosie Carlyle, a nurse and also a patient of Ruth's at the clinic where she now practices. Rosie suffers from deep anxiety and depression, possibly resulting in a disturbing event that took place when she was a teenager and a secret which she and her best friend Anabel kept. Now Anabel has gone missing and Rosie is frantic with worry over what may have happened to her friend and sets about looking for her. Rosie's narrative is somewhat unreliable as her convoluted thoughts spill out with justifications for her behaviour and those of Anabel, who was apparently threatening to reveal the secret they had kept for fourteen years.
Initially, it isn't clear how these two storylines intersect but it soon becomes clear as Ruth continues to seek justice for her son and Rosie searches for Anabel. The two characters are as different as each other - Ruth is a strong character searching for the truth whilst Rosie is unstable, untrustworthy and unreliable. But does that make her a bad person? Or is she just caught up in something over which she has no control? Both women were complementing of the other in their vast extremes while they each had their own foibles. The supporting characters were an interesting bunch - Kim (mistrusting at first), Akito (engineering whizz), Tilly (not sure where she fits in but she's there), Joan (a staunch and loyal advocate), Drs Campbell, Raj and Miller (supportive colleagues in whom Ruth found trust), Pauline (whose mouth seriously needed washing out), Tim Wiley (a PC with a secret), Anabel (the missing best friend who seemed more like a ghost throughout) and Henry Thorpe (the landlord-come-friend-come-confidante-come-something more perhaps?) - and certainly a colourful cast.
It is worth mentioning that the story does touch on suicide, though it isn't a huge focus it may be a trigger for some readers. Overall the book covers themes of grief, loss and relationships - both toxic and fulfilling. A psychological thriller focusing on family drama, THE SECRET MOTHER is a twisted tale that will leave you shocked and somewhat disturbed by the outcome.
Although engrossing, THE SECRET MOTHER is not entirely addictive as I found the story just a little too drawn out. I became impatient with Rosie's convoluted narrative thinking her bonkers, if not deluded. But I just had to find out what happened with Tom and why. I have to admit, I did figure some of it out but was left a little puzzled by other parts. Yes, there were a few niggles, my main one being that I felt the story just went too long but overall it was still engrossing enough to make me want to read to the end. I wasn't disappointed but I wasn't completely satisfied either.
THE SECRET MOTHER is a psychological thriller of a different kind but a reasonably good read nonetheless.
I would like to thank #LizLawler, #NetGalley and #Bookouture for an ARC of #TheSilentMother in exchange for an honest review.
MEET THE AUTHOR:
Liz has three children and lives in Bath with her husband. She originates from Chatham, Kent, but has lived in Somerset for a number of years now. She is part of a large family, and has eleven brothers and sisters who grew up sharing anything from socks to a chair at the table.
Liz has always had a love for books from a very early age, but found her passion for writing at a later stage in life and has been unable to put the pen down since. She is signed to Bookouture.com for her next two books, and her books have been translated in over 12 languages.
She loves books and all things bookish! If you have time, say hello to her on Twitter or on her Facebook page.
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