The Silent Child – ARC Book Review

When a body is discovered at an abandoned Suffolk farm, DS Rob Minshull and the squad believes it’s the latest casualty of the drugs war terrorising rural communities. But when the victim is identified as a well-respected local teacher, the case is thrown wide open.

While they hunt the murderer, the South Suffolk CID team face a new threat. A brutal vigilante group dispensing their own twisted justice puts the investigation in grave danger, as well as the detectives.

Educational psychologist, Dr Cora Lael, is called in to work with Lottie Arundel, a troubled teen who stopped speaking a year ago.

As Cora enters Lottie’s world, it seems that the teen’s silence might hold the key to the case. But as Cora and Rob work together to find a vicious killer, it’s clear that uncovering Lottie’s secrets will take Cora and Rob into the most dangerous of places – where the price to pay for the truth might be death…

This is the second book of the Cora Lael series but this is the first time I have started reading this series. And I actually enjoyed reading this book really much.

The story starts with a discovery of a dead body in a lonely barn. The body was identified that as of a school teacher named Oliver. Meanwhile, Cora is asked to see a teenager named Lottie Arundel who stopped speaking a year ago. As Cora gets to work with Lottie, she finds that there is a similarity between Lottie and the current murder case that Cora sets to work with the detectives to find the vicious killer and the reason why Lottie stopped talking a year ago.

This was a completely compelling and gripping thriller. The author has done a good job of drawing the reader into the story thus making the reader feel like they are a part of the story as well. There were some twists and turns, the story gets more and more interesting towards the middle and the end, when you find out that even the victim has some sort of a dark history. The story talks about sexual molestation happening in shcools and how the teachers seemed to have ignored it and I like how the author handled the sensitive issue. Neverthless, the ending really gripped me and completely unexpected. I cannot wait to read more books from Cora Lael series! Worth five stars.

Many thanks to Netgalley and the Hera for the ARC. The review is based on my honest opinion only.