A review by salreads
Remain Silent by Susie Steiner

4.0

‘If I can’t do my job, I’m not anything..I am the job’ , Manon declares at one point when her job appears to be in jeopardy. Herein lies the success of Steiner’s detective, Manon. Manon isn’t just her job, she is a fully realised character with her troubled personal life spilling over into her work and her current investigation spilling over into her home life. This frequently creates a tension for the reader as the story switches between the two , pausing a narrative about cancer or one about a young girl being trapped. Manon has been one of my favourite detectives since I first encountered her in Missing Presumed. She is quite simply so beautifully envisaged she just walks out of the pages and with each book Manon has developed and grown as a character. In Remain Silent Manon’s household now includes a partner with health issues and two children with very different demands and her absolute love for them provides a warm undertow in choppy waters. Manon is in mid - life: analysing her life future , present and past under a cynical microscope. Her view of a jaded contemporary world is one that resonated greatly with me. The book starts with a dead body, that of an Eastern European migrant worker - suicide or murder? Manon must investigate. The case leads Manon and her sidekick, Davy, to parts of rural Cambridgeshire where tensions between Eastern European workers and the local population are high. The life of the workers is absolutely brutal and totally shocking, utterly bleak. Trapped by gangmasters in a foreign land where they are needed but not wanted. Then one of them is dead. Remain Silent is a brilliant read and it will make a brilliant film. I hope Manon will return.