Joy Dettman is another new author to me, but the premise of The Silent Inheritance had immediate appeal. Secrets? Mystery? Crime? All ticks for me. Here’s the blurb:
Sarah Carter, mother of twelve-year-old Marni, is raising her daughter alone in a small granny flat in suburban Melbourne. A serial killer, dubbed ‘The Freeway Killer’, is headline news and when Marni’s classmate is abducted from the mall where Sarah and Marni shop, their city no longer feels safe. Detective Ross Hunter’s investigation into the abduction leads him to dead ends – until an unrelated incident sends him to the door of Freddy Adam-Jones, an unscrupulous barrister, who is guarding a secret that could ruin his life.
When an unexpected windfall changes the lives of Sarah and Marni, their sudden wealth opens doors long closed, and threatens to cast light on history better left buried.
What might Sarah’s past reveal? What is her connection to Freddy? And can Detective Ross Hunter discover the link in time to save a young girl’s life?
The Silent Inheritance starts slowly and at times I found it difficult to connect with the multiple story lines. Fortunately, the tension and pace amps up towards the end as the characters’ stories meld and the ‘will they save the young girl’ question comes to the forefront. Aspects of the novel, particularly the scenes involving The Freeway Killer and his victim, increase the creep factor, leading to goosebumps of tension as situations change. Sarah, who is deaf, was well depicted and I liked that her strength of character was not muted.
I didn’t feel that all the loose ends were tied up completely and some of the conclusions were a bit questionable, but overall a good read, if not an excellent one.
Available from good bookstores (RRP $32.99AUD). My copy was courtesy of Pan Macmillan.
Monique Mulligan
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David Edwards is the editor of The Blurb and a contributor on film and television