A review by nonna7
The Final Silence by Stuart Neville

4.0

The latest Stuart Neville book continues the story of Jack Lennon, a cop who is prone to temptation, but whose heart is in the right place. He is fighting a losing fight against corruption. Jack has given up fighting for his job, now all he wants is to get a medical pension. Even that may be denied to him because he shot a fellow police officer who was trying to kill him. The gunfight took place while Jack was trying to get a woman who had come to Belfast thinking she was going to be a nanny. Instead she was forced into prostitution. Jack gets her on the plane but not before being shot. It's a year later. He's addicted to pain pills that he gets illegally, he drinks too much and his relationship with Susan is more and more tenuous. The only thing that keeps him going is his daughter, Ellen. However, her deceased mother's family continues to try to get her away from him. The book opens with Rea Carlisle, 35 year old unemployed woman whose father is a well known local politician. When her uncle, Raymond, her mother's half brother, dies, Rea's parents offer the house to her. Rea is thrilled. She's been sharing a flat with several other women. She and her mother clean out the house, but there's one room that is tightly closed. When she finally gets it open, she is horrified at what she sees there: a book that outlines a series of unsolved murders including hair and a fingernail of one of the victims. I discovered Stuart Neville with his first book, The Ghosts of Belfast. It's still one of my favorites. His books center on the Belfast after "the Troubles" and how members of the militias that caused so much pain in that country have now burrowed into positions of power. Neville writes with a clean, taut style that carries the reader through to the end. Oh, and the reason for two images: The one with the figure in the window is apparently the European version. I wish they had used it for the American version. )