The Silent Conversation

The Silent Conversation is the thirteenth book in the Anderson & Costello series by British author, Caro Ramsay. On a hot June night when the BBC airs a program featuring an appeal for information about the abduction of a toddler four years earlier, and a review of a serial killer case, a young woman in police uniform dies in the garden of an exclusive gated residence. A man in a baseball cap runs off. An off-duty police officer renders assistance but fails to save her. There is a reluctant witness.

Glasgow Police DCI Colin Anderson and DI Costello are puzzled by many aspects of the case, not least, that she is unknown to police. Mobile phone, laptop and handbag missing. Car not located. Only a tucked -away credit card finally identifies her. What really mystifies them is the trace of DNA on her person belonging to that missing toddler from four years ago.

Maltman Green looks like a little idyll in the middle of the city: four residences converted from a former brewery, surrounding a private green. Two families who own the property, and two tenants. All very friendly. But are appearances deceiving? Is everyone quite who and what they say they are? And when police finally interview the woman who saw it happen, why does her story not quite tally with that of the heroic off-duty constable?

DI Costello feels that their unit has lost cohesion: Anderson is distracted by his new grandson; Mulholland, by his nascent media career; for her, a sensitive anniversary looms. Nonetheless, and despite the red herrings that lead them (and the reader) astray, they do manage to sort out just who is who, and who might have had motive to take that missing boy.

While Anderson seems fixated on the driver of a car accident that left a young boy severely disabled, Costello is more convinced that a faux Swede, or a lying constable, or a half-brother of the dead woman, somehow fit the frame. The truth, ultimately, is quite tangled.

Ramsay uses multiple narrators to tell the story, including one who is anonymous but is apparently held captive somewhere in the gated residence. While this novel can easily stand alone, the reader may be at a disadvantage not knowing the back stories of the main characters, and there are spoilers for the fifth book in the series, The Night Hunter. Excellent British crime fiction.

This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Canongate/Severn House.