A review by imbookingit
Silence by Thomas Perry

4.0

Silence was an enjoyable thriller, with a few annoyances in the female characters.

Thomas Perry is known for writing stories about someone leading people into hiding and into new lives in his Jane Whitefield books. Silence has an interesting twist-- Jack Till coached Wendy Harper in the skills she would need to successfully disappear 6 years ago. Now, he needs to find her, and must unravel the steps she took.

The book switches between views of Jack (& Wendy) and that of Sylvie (& Paul) Turner, the ballroom dancing killers for hire, with occasional looks at other characters. For the most part, the characters were interesting and well written, but I had an issue with each of the two primary female characters.

Sylvie married a killer for hire, and became his partner in his business as well. In the middle of a job (which isn't going well), she keeps worrying about why he doesn't show her more affection, does he still love her, is she losing her beauty as she's aging, and so on. This was distracting and unnecessary.

Wendy's actions are shaped by her falling in love with Jack during their short acquaintance, when he was teaching her how to escape the person trying to kill her. In spite of this, she marries a man with children, putting them all in danger. I wanted to think she was a different sort of person.

There was a twist at the end I didn't see coming, that answered the minor problems I had with the plot up until that point. The book kept me listening, and that's the biggest test.