Silenced
"..a well-paced thriller with crackling dialogue."
Synopsis:
Fiona Henderson, the daughter of the victim who'd descended into a world of silence following her mother's murder, has gone missing. Her sister Annabelle scours the city in a desperate attempt to find her. Then the body of a homeless person is found among the rubbish in a deserted alleyway.
As DIs Wheeler and Ross investigate, more suspicious deaths occur and a pattern emerges: the victims are all homeless. And so the police are pitched against a killer who is hell-bent on a mission to rid the streets of the vulnerable and the dispossessed.
Wheeler and Ross descend further into Glasgow's netherworld, their investigation reveals not only a flawed support system for the disaffected, but a criminal class ruthlessly willing to exploit them. This is a city of double standards, where morality is bought and sold, but it's when the killer begins stalking Wheeler, that she and Ross release the threat is now personal.
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Review:
'Silenced' is the second novel in the Wheeler and Ross series. The first, 'Riven' was published to great acclaim last year under the name AJ McCreanor. This is a well-paced thriller with crackling dialogue. Randall writes with spot-on Glasgow colloquialisms. You can almost hear the accent with every line spoken. This is genuine Scottish noir at its best. The story is intriguing and Randall keeps wrong-footing the reader at every turn. The finale is ferocious, fitting and faithful to the characters and plot. Anne Randall uses her setting well. She pits Glasgow against her characters as if they're at odds with one another. Glasgow could almost be the main character here: homelessness, and a broken social system. I would have liked to have seen more of a manhunt and inter-agency battle to locate a missing prisoner. This may have given the story more bite and energy but Randall's labyrinthine plot drives the action at a steady speed and doesn't let up until the final pages. Wheeler and Ross are a good team. However it is strange to see two detectives of the same rank work together when you usually get a DI work with a lower ranked officer. They don't come across as equals either with Ross usually taking a subordinate role in the investigation. However, I can see Wheeler and Ross being around for a long time to come. With Anne Randall's original voice behind them, crime fiction fans are in for a real treat.