Silenced

Glasgow: cold, thunder, snow, freezing wind, sleet, grime, squalor - this is Glasgow at its very worst, evocatively described by Anne Randall.

This sets the atmosphere for the whole of this dark, intriguing story. It has two main threads, satisfactorily intertwined, and a very large cast of characters. As the pace quickened I gave up on the names, and enjoyed the story.

Mark Haedyear, imprisoned for burying his victim alive, to starve to death, has escaped, and is on the run looking for his next victim. At the same time someone is targetting homeless street-dwellers, to strangle them. The police are out in force, the f--- word liberally sprinkled in their dialogue. The buried victim had a daughter, Lucy, inclined to go missing, now away much longer than usual. All this, dark as it is, is quite enough to produce a good brain-stretching tale. Oh yes, I must not forget the two or three “communications”, apparently told by someone, a murderer? Enjoying very much his cleverness, boasting and gloating. I don’t think I am spoiling anything if I say that the identity, revealed at the very end, had me completely baffled.

Altogether a book to be recommended, with only a few very minor drawbacks: the cast, as I have said, is very large; swearing may upset, or bore some people; excellent as Anne Randall is at evoking atmosphere, and she does do it very well, she sometimes goes into unnecessary detail. These are only the nit-picking of an elderly pedant. This is definitely a good read.