Lee Wood (1)

It really hurts me to give this book a one star review. This is the second volume in this series, and the first volume, Kingdom of Lies, is truly one of my favorite books. I love Keen and Jillie, and the way the interact with each other, and with other people around them. I love the fact that they are functional, independent professionals, in very different fields, who work together well. When I finished Kingdom of Lies, and saw that it was book one in a series, I eagerly searched for the next, but it had yet to be published, and gradually fell off my list. When I saw this at the library, I snatched it up, delighted. And now, well...

I couldn't finish the book. That's rare, but especially for one so highly anticipated. There were several reasons. First, by the time I quit, I was between a third and half way through the book, and I had spent about 2 pages in Jillie's head, most of that clearly setting up a future conflict with Keen. I had spent probably 20 pages (I didn't actually check) in Keen's head, scattered over several episodes, and clearly moving him into position to be in conflict with Jillie. I spent the rest of the book with a variety of characters, mostly unpleasant, doing things that didn't interest me at all, none of which were connected to each other, or to Keen, or to Jillie, in any obvious way.

This last, by the way, didn't really bother me. One of the things that I enjoyed about the Kingdom of Lies was the way that a lot of seemingly very separate threads came together beautifully, in a richly satisfying way. Wood has earned my trust on that, and I would have followed half a dozen unconnected sub-plots to see how they come together.

No, the big problem is that this book desperately needs a huge TRIGGER WARNING on the front cover. The prologue, and the first section of each chapter, describe animal mistreatment and abuse in the most graphic way, meaning that for those of us who trigger on that, it's a nightmare. I very quickly learned to skip everything in italics, but there were whole scenes, chapters, that I skimmed quickly, trying to get past the stomach churning bits, only to have something equally horrific pop up once the danger seemed to be over. I finally realized that I had racked up more overdue fines than the cover price of the book because I simply could not read it, and gave up.

I'm very disappointed. I miss Keen and Jillie, and I hope that someday, somewhere, there is a volume 3, and it won't involve animal abuse.… (mais)

Kingdom of Silence is an engaging literary mystery centered around Dectective Sergeant Keen Dunliffe. He gets assigned to a case involving a violent animal rights group with an inexperienced female constable who just happens to have the right connections. The author goes into quite a bit of detail with both Keen and Rachel's history, giving the characters enough depth to make them very realistic. The story is set in the British countryside right in the middle of the foot and mouth disease crisis and you get a close-up look at the devastation caused both by the disease and by the authorities in charge of stopping it.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book! Well-developed charaters that are flawed, but likeable combined with an intricate plot basd around an interesting and not very well understood historical event make for an intelligent page-turner of book.

I listened to this book on audio and I can highly recommend it! The narrator, Ralph Cosham, has one audio awards and its easy to see why. He captures the dry humor of Detective Keen perfectly.… (mais)