The Price of Silence

Starred review from October 26, 2015
The Sussex village of Croxton Ferriers, the setting for Gordon-Smith’s stellar ninth mystery set in post-WWI England (after 2014’s After the Exhibition), is rocked to its core when a badly mutilated body turns up in the local church. One of the two women who discovered the remains in a cupboard is Isabelle Stanton, a cousin of amateur sleuth Jack Haldean, a fighter pilot during the war who soon gets on the case. The other is Isabelle’s friend, strikingly beautiful
Sue Castradon, whose husband, Ned, was badly disfigured in the war and who bears grudges against everyone in general but one person in particular: Sir Matthew Vardon, a greedy, scurrilous old rascal, whose son, Simon, is smitten with Sue. A chess piece left in the church cupboard may be a vital clue. Plausible red herrings abound as Jack and the village
residents ponder the case and all its incongruities over tea in the drawing rooms of Croxton Ferriers. Some readers will stay up all night to finish this fine traditional mystery.

September 25, 2017
Set during WWI, Gordon-Smith’s exciting sequel to 2013’s Frankie’s Letter opens with the discovery of the bodies of kindly, well-regarded Edward Jowett, a bank officer, and his wife in a locked room in their comfortable London home. Jowett apparently shot his wife and then himself. When, a short time later, a Belgian priest overhears a suspect conversation in which the name Jowett is mentioned, British secret agent Dr. Anthony Brooke investigates. Aided by his resourceful and well-educated wife, Tara, and his fellow spies, Brooke uncovers some good old-fashioned clues, such as partial words on a scrap of paper found in a dead woman’s hand, with Tara recognizing the significance of a colon. Brooke later makes a daring foray into German-occupied Belgium, where he must rescue an orphan girl who may hold the key to solving the mystery of the Jowetts’ deaths. The trail eventually leads Brooke to a vicious nest of blackmailers and a gang of murderous criminals. Gordon-Smith smoothly inserts well-researched historical color into the derring-do plot.

December 1, 2015
Fans of Golden Age grande dames Christie, Allingham, and Sayers will delight in this quintessentially British murder mystery, set in 1920s England and featuring a wealth of suspects and motives, and enough twists to keep even seasoned readers guessing. When the badly mutilated body of a man is found in a church in the tiny village of Croxton Ferriers, Major Jack Haldean is called in to assist the local police in finding the killer. Not only does the dashing Haldean have previous experience in such cases, but it was his cousin Isabelle who discovered the body. The most baffling and chilling aspect of the case is the black chess piece found beside the body. Haldean is still puzzling over what the chess piece meanswhat message is the killer trying to deliver?when another body turns up, with a second chess piece beside it. Understanding that he has no time to lose and that the killer is devilishly clever, Haldean finally unearths both the motive and the shocking truth about the killer's identity. For readers who complain that nobody writes like Dame Agatha anymore.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)

October 15, 2017
Gordon-Smith consistently produces sharply written, meticulously researched, fully engaging books that pull the reader in from the first page, and her latesta spy thriller set in London and Belgium during WWIis no exception. The story begins with the apparent murder-suicide of prosperous London banker Edward Jowett and his wife. In a seemingly unrelated incident, a priest overhears a disturbing conversation from his confessionala couple seem to be plotting the kidnapping of a child and a possible murder. As the plot unfolds, links between the two incidents emerge, and it seems there may be international implications. It's no time at all before the British government, in the form of Sir Charles Talbot and Dr. Anthony Brooke, becomes involved. Talbot runs a secret espionage agency within the government, and Brooke has worked for him in the past. There's plenty of suspense here, bolstered by a notably twisty plot. Old-school historical espionage.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)

September 1, 2017
A British doctor who doubles as spy makes a dangerous trip to occupied Belgium during World War I.When starchy housekeeper Mrs. Rachel Harrop catches the butler, the parlormaid, and two housemaids listening outside the study door of quiet banker Mr. Jowett, she's shocked until she hears a bit of what Jowett and his wife are saying. Then gunshots ring out. The police call it a murder-suicide, but the fact that the bank is owned by a wealthy German-American whose son, Paul Diefenbach, actually runs it arouses suspicions, especially since Paul is missing, supposedly on a trip to South America. The investigation becomes more urgent when a Belgian priest reports overhearing a conversation between two men and a woman who are discussing kidnapping a child and mention the names Jowett and Sister Marie-Eugenie. Sir Charles Talbot, who runs a highly secret intelligence service, immediately calls upon Dr. Anthony Brooke, who along with his clever wife, Tara, is familiar with both the nun and the orphanage in Belgium from Brooke's early brush with German machinations and the evil use of a little girl known only as Milly (Frankie's Letter, 2013, etc.). Further investigation turns up clues to blackmail plots, an attack on Jowett's stepson, and the knife-wielding woman whom the priest overheard agreeing to be a nursemaid and possibly a murderer. Only Brooke's hair-raising trip to the Belgian orphanage to rescue Milly sets the authorities on the path to the truth. An exciting spy novel partly based on historical events is excellent as a stand-alone but even more enjoyable if you read Frankie's Letter first.

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