Silence the Dead

It's worth your life to know the dark secrets in this town and speak about them...

Severn House and Net Galley allowed me to read this book for review (thank you). It will be published January 1st of 2015, so watch for it then. (I'm reviewing it now because Severn House archived it.)

There's a new Mayor in town and he makes a habit of hanging out at a certain restaurant for a few hours each week to meet constituents. That's how he hears about potholes, animal problems, stop signs down and the like. What he doesn't expect is for someone to ask him to look into a cold case: A seventeen year old who was shot to death over 30 years ago. This case isn't cold; it's frozen!

The first thing Mac finds is that the waitress that asked him to look into the case has disappeared. She hasn't even gone back to her apartment to get her clothes or goods. As he dips into the case, he finds holes everywhere. There are papers missing, a lot of the investigation was a farce, the police chief killed himself, and a lot of the evidence was destroyed or altered. Her sister won't speak to him. Neither will the men involved in the case. All he has is a female reporter who also lost her sister in the same time period and would like that case resolved. Through her, he finds a reporter who disappeared shortly after the girls' deaths. He gets a list of suspects from him and hears of all the conflicting evidence that disappeared. The icing on the cake is when the baby brother comes to him and asks him to help him. They exhume the body and the head doesn't match the rest of the body...

The dirt in this town is deep. Those who talk to Mac disappear or die. His restaurant and home is burned a bit as a threat. People stop coming to his business and don't talk to him anymore. He gets a lawsuit thrown at him. If he keeps going, he could be dead, too. But he doesn't give up...

Jack Fredrickson's Silence the Dead is told in two distinct parts.

Jonah Ridy is a disgraced investigative journalist wallowing in the features section of the Chicago Sun Times newspaper when his editor requests he follow up a story. Ridy half-heartedly sets off to small town in Illinois where a man's been shot and his date (the possible killer) has gone missing.

It seems pretty obvious on Ridy's arrival however, that no one really suspects Betty Jo killed her date and is on the lam. Rather the general consensus is that she's in danger herself.

To say that Ridy is unwelcome in Grand Point would be a mammoth understatement. The local police's antipathy towards the out of town journalist would set anyone's spidey senses tingling and it only makes Ridy more determined.

After a few false leads Betty Jo's body is found - killed by the same gun as her date.

Ridy's suspicious. She's found in an area which had been searched previously. The police, coroner and funeral parlour all claim her body was there for days and had deteriorated from the elements, so they rush to bury her.

None of it adds up for Ridy who discovers that the town seems to be run by a group of possibly corrupt officials who have their hand in every pie. He's helped in his investigation by a young female college student* who has the scoop from an insider and it seems Betty Jo had a secret lover. One with influence. But when the college student* is killed in a suspicious accident Ridy submits his story and leaves town.

Fast Forward 30 years and we meet newly appointed Mayor Mac Bassett. He's got his own problems though and is facing a lawsuit and struggling to make his new restaurant and bar a success. A new arrival - he's intrigued by some of the town's secrets - including Betty Jo's still-unsolved murder and the countless discrepancies uncovered during the investigation.

Despite his position Mac finds himself up against the same barriers as Ridy all of those years before. His own troubles grow as he pushes harder and harder to understand what happened to Betty Jo. Eventually getting the family's agreement to exhume the body they discover the remains in the casket don't ALL belong to the same person and this poses even more questions. And just as Ridy's investigation years resulted in the loss of lives Mac soon finds that his life and those around him may well be at risk.

I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this book. I really liked both lead characters (Ridy and Mac) and it was interesting to see the two men doggedly trying to get justice for a woman they didn't know. The investigation(s) were both challenging and I enjoyed seeing the men unpick the clues. The actual crime in itself wasn't overly complex (or even that interesting) but the cover up and fallout from the investigation(s) are really what added texture to this case. The 'who' did it was pretty obvious by the end but that really didn't impact on the novel's narrative. I probably would have liked a few little extra twists and turns but it was still a solid 3.5 book for me.

*I started this review shortly after finishing the novel but decided to return to it at a later date and ... by the time I did the novel was no longer active on my eReader, so I can't remember the name of Ridy's helper.

First Sentence: Betty Jo Dean lay as she had for over thirty years, shrouded in black vinyl, forever seventeen.

In 1982, Jonah Ridy, a reporter for the Chicago Sun Times, is given the chance to restore his reputation as an investigative journalist by travelling to a small town for a follow-up piece about a man who has been shot and whose girlfriend is missing. In spite of his very cold reception, he perseveres, even though people around him start dying. One death finally causes him to walk away. Thirty-years later, the town has a new mayor, an outsider. The more he learns about the town’s secrets, the more determined he is to find the answers—no matter the cost.

This is a story of three parts, each completely engrossing. In the first part, we meet Betty Jo Dean. Fredrickson makes us feel her fear and desperation. No mater her background, we empathize with her. In the second part, we come to know Jonah Ridy. We want him to be redeemed and to solve the mystery, but we greatly fear for him. In the third, and major section of the story, we have Mayor Mac Bassett who, with the support of his ex-wife, waitress and others, is determined to find the answers. Fredrickson does a masterful job of introducing us to Mac and establishing his personality, thereby explaining his actions.

The sign of a really good story is when you become so involved and invested in one time period; you are started when there is a shift. You have to trust that the author will bring the parts together so that it all makes sense. Frederickson definitely achieved that.

The only very, very slight flaw to the book was having a prologue. Rather than having that section at the beginning, it would have been better to leave it only within the relevant section of the story. Having the prologue wasn’t really necessary and diminished the impact of the information when it did appear later. The second, itty-bitty criticism is that the final status of the main characters was a bit twee, but perhaps that’s more a reaction of jealousy.

There are some authors one discovers, and enjoys, but feels their writing could be so much “more.” This book is definitely the “more” for which one has been waiting. This book is the one from Fredrickson for which I’ve been waiting.

“Silence the Dead” is very well plotted, without any reliance on coincidences. Everything is rationally, logically, or emotionally based and appropriate. The forensic information is critical, well-explained, and fascinating. The level of suspense is ratcheted up at a steady pace with excellent twists right up to the very end. Highly Recommended.

SILENCE THE DEAD (Trad Myst – Jonah Ridl/Mac Basset – Illinois – 1982/Contemp) – VG+
Fredrickson, Jack –Standalone Severn House, January 2015

Silence the Dead by Jack Fredrickson In Silence the dead Fredrickson delivers a tantalising unsolved murder spanning thirty years that impacted a small community in Grand Point Illinois.
When Betty Jo Deans and Paulus Pribilski are found murdered the police are inundated by so many clues and leads that they don’t know where to turn. Jonah Ridl, a traumatised reporter, suspects there is more to Betty Jo’s murder than the police are revealing and when the body count increases he disappears. Thirty years later Mac Bassett is elected mayor and when a constituent asks him to investigate Betty Jo’s murder the slugs begin to crawl out from under their stones. Silence The Dead is about achieving justice, humanity, community and sheer bloody minded doggedness. It is about the injustice delivered to the people of Pinktown (so named because the people were so poor they got a job lot of cheap pink paint to paint their homes) by the ‘importants’ who can get away with it because of their privileged position in society.
From an explosive beginning through to its dramatic ending Silence the dead is a fantastic read. Highly recommended.