When a body is discovered at an abandoned Suffolk farm, DS Rob Minshull and the squad believes it’s the latest casualty of the drugs war terrorising rural communities. But when the victim is
identified as a well-respected local teacher, the case is thrown wide open.
While they hunt the murderer, the South Suffolk CID team face a new threat. A brutal vigilante group dispensing their own twisted justice puts the investigation in grave danger, as well as the detectives.
Educational psychologist, Dr Cora Lael, is called in to work with Lottie Arundel, a troubled teen who stopped speaking a year ago.
As Cora enters Lottie’s world, it seems that the teen’s silence might hold the key to the case. But as Cora and Rob work together to find a vicious killer, it’s clear that uncovering Lottie’s secrets will take
Cora and Rob into the most dangerous of places – where the price to pay for the truth might be death…
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MJ White is the pseudonym of bestselling author Miranda Dickinson, author of twelve books, including six Sunday Times bestsellers. Her books have been translated into ten languages, selling over a million copies worldwide. A long time lover of crime fiction, The Secret Voices is her debut crime series. She is a singer-songwriter, host of weekly Facebook Live show, Fab Night In Chatty Thing..
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My thoughts: a local high school teacher found brutally murdered looks likely to be linked to county lines drug smuggling, but there’s a lot more to Oliver O’Sullivan, and none of it good. His relationships with some of his students at the all girls school crossed lines and it might be that which got him killed, if a local vigilante group can be believed.
Cora’s new job, helping troubled children, brings her to a teenage girl who has spoken in months – selective mutism. I once worked with a little girl who had this, it’s very sad really. But choosing to be silent is powerful, in a way, using your voice and speaking out can be very hard.
Lottie might be connected to the case and Cora tentatively speaks to Rob – if she can get Lottie to talk, they might solve the murder.
There are a lot of quite dark themes here but they’re handled sensitively and without turning into sensationalism. Lottie’s silence is something she has chosen, painful as it is for her parents, and her reasoning is that of a child, not an adult. Which makes it hard to understand, her methods to get help are tragic and misguided, yet understandable when you see how previous attempts failed.
Clever, dark and troubling,but shot through with moments of humour and the growing bond between Cora and Rob is nice. The other members of the team get a bit more space too, making them more interesting and less just names to immediately forget!
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own
ramblingmads 