Remain Silent by Susie Steiner
Manon Bradshaw is happy to be working part-time in the Cambridgeshire police force’s cold cases division. This job enables her to potter in, coffee in hand, and log on for a spot of online shopping—exactly what she had in mind when she thought of work-life balance. Manon Bradshaw is recently married and navigating life with a preschooler as well as she adopted adolescent son. Underneath, however, Manon is battling the everyday struggles of what she had assumed would be domestic bliss, including arguments over who gets to clean the kitchen first, the perplexing exhaustion of having a young child in her forties, and the fact that she attends couples counselling alone because her husband thinks it would just be her complaining.
But Manon knows her life is about to change when she comes upon a Lithuanian immigrant’s body hanging from a tree with a mystery message attached while out for a stroll with her four-year-old son in a quiet suburban neighbourhood. She returns to work abruptly, determined to solve the suicide—or is it a murder?—in what may be the most challenging and perilous case of her career.
Remain Silent by Susie Steiner
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Having read and appreciated the series’ earlier volumes, I admire the character Manon Bradshaw. Even while Manon occasionally gets annoyed by her coworkers and her superior officer, who seems determined to change the way Manon performs her job, her internal monologues are sharp and occasionally humorous, and her diligence on the job comes across.
Will Manon ever crack the code on the bizarre case involving slave labour and immigrants? Can she find a way to balance her life at home and at work?
Susie Steiner writes works that focus on diversity; her main talent is in creating people who are as different as possible. This book alternates chapters between the grumpy, anxious, sweary, but endearing detective Manon, her witty but immature assistant who is struggling with marriage, two Lithuanian farm workers who are struggling to survive in modern slavery, a seductive, ambitious, hopeful BP cash assistant, and her racist, alternatingly affectionate and abusive father. All of them are people you can relate to, or at the very least, you can comprehend. The murder theme unites them all as the book’s main focus is on making meaning of life from all these distinct angles.
The tone, story, goal, and style of this thriller take some time to develop. It serves the public well by exposing the horrifying repressive system that tempts, deceives, oppresses, and abandons foreign temporary labour. Early on, though, there are times when overt moralizing undermines the justified fury, and the narrative becomes sluggish and undercooked.
However, things take up in the second half as the story starts to fly thanks to hilarious humour that leavens and lightens it. I haven’t read a breakup scene that is both more successful and funny. The story’s early melancholy and proselytizing are not refuted; rather, it enriches them. The characters come to life, and the little arbitrary nature of the story loses significance.
