Silent Night is the second installment of Nell Pattison’s Paige Northwood mystery series. The first installment, The Silent House, was reviewed here on the blog last month. Silent Night is an edge of your seat, heart pounding, suspenseful thriller that brings Northwood’s abusive ex back into the picture—scenes with Northwood’s ex are some of the most tense in the book.
When a teenage boy named Leon disappears while on retreat with a group from his school for the deaf and the school’s headmaster turns up dead in the same park, Paige Northwood is called in by D.I. Forest and D.S. Singh to consult for the police and act as their official British Sign Language interpreter. As Forest and Singh investigate, it’s revealed that not only are they on a time crunch to track down the missing student, but they’re up against the perennially poor, if stereotypical, teenage attitude. However, these teenagers, particularly Leon’s friends, are also cagey, secretive, and loathe to give up their secrets, largely because they don’t trust easily. Meanwhile the investigation reveals that multiple staff at the school are also hiding secrets—but is one of them the killer?
Upon arrival at the park, Northwood is shocked and unsettled to find that the abusive ex-boyfriend, who emotionally abused her, held her captive, and left her in mountains of debt that she’s still working to pay off three years later, now works at the school as something of a house parent. The fact that Mike used the BSL skills that Northwood taught him to get himself a better job than the call center position he was working when they were in a relationship doesn’t sit well with her. (And the fact that he insists he needs closure and that Northwood needs to hear ‘his side’ of how their relationship ended doesn’t sit well with me.)
The investigation reveals a twisted web of secrets buried at the school, and students who are merely vulnerable victims the killer is using as pawns in a complicated, calculated scheme of revenge. In this installment Pattison does a better job of keeping the reader guessing the killer’s true identity until the final reveal.
Further thoughts
Mike’s appearance is a turn off coupled with Northwood’s poor choices, such as saving his number in her phone despite her better judgment, half way believing his apology, and shielding the details of her relationship from Singh when he broaches the obvious tension between Mike and Northwood. This is a character flaw of Northwood’s: holding back information when that information may inform the investigation.
I will never understand why Paige allows Anna, her sister, to push her into doing independent, if tangential, off book investigation related to the case regarding why the school’s previous headmaster was pushed out early. Did they not learn their lesson eight months prior when Anna’s meddling and investigating nearly got her killed while Paige’s bumbling assumptions and investigating nearly got her sacked from both that case, working with the police again—and also nearly got her killed?
Who does Anna think she is, just divulging Paige’s past history with Mike and his involvement in Paige’s current interpreting assignment to Paige’s current boyfriend when she knows Paige hasn’t told him about it yet and why she hasn’t told him? Anna meddles in Paige’s professional life and now she meddles needlessly in Paige’s personal life. Rude.
A Series of (Un)Fortunate Reviews 