I am very excited to be taking part in the blog tour for Theresa Talbot’s latest novel, Keep Her Silent. Now before anyone says about the date, I do apologise that I am a day late with my review as my illnesses rendered me unable to move last night. However, the review is here now so thank you Aria Fiction for the blog tour invite and the ARC.
Ooonagh O’Neil is back with another dark and chilling investigation…
“Do that which is good and no evil shall touch you”
That was the note the so-called Raphael killer left on each of his victims. Everyone in Glasgow – investigative journalist Oonagh O’Neil included – remember the murder of three women in Glasgow which sent a wave of terror through the city. They also remember that he is still at large…
When the police investigation into the Raphael killings reopens, Oonagh is given a tip off that leads her straight to the heart of a complex and deadly cover-up. When history starts to repeat itself, it seems the killer is closer than she thinks. Could Oonagh be the next target…?
What does TWG think?
I am probably going to sound completely uneducated here, but until I had read ‘Keep Her Silent’, I had absolutely no idea about the blood scandal that went on in the seventies. Seeing as it literally was a world-wide scandal, I am rather shocked with myself for not knowing (okay, I wasn’t born then but still!). ‘Keep Her Silent’ may be predominantly fiction, but the author has used a real life, historical event in her storyline, which means that those parts of the book are based on true event that happened to real people. To be perfectly honest, that alone is shocking enough. I mean, I was absolutely gobsmacked by what the author was teaching me – how on Earth did it manage to stay under the radar for so long, and why hasn’t anyone got justice?
Aside from the blood element, ‘Keep Her Silent’ has a lot of things to keep readers interested! I won’t give anything away but Oonagh O’Neil is certainly a memorable and larger than life character, that’s for sure!
I adored the opening to ‘Keep Her Silent’! The seed was planted, the hook had done its job, and the seatbelt was secured ready to keep me safe on a ride of a lifetime. I’ll even go as far as saying that that opening was my favourite part of the book!
However (sorry!), I couldn’t help but feel as though the pace of the storyline dropped dramatically as the storyline progressed, before reaching its peak again towards the end. I thought that Theresa Talbot wrote about the scandal very well, being very clear and concise with all of the facts, whilst also keeping to the timeline of events. Very impressive. I also thought that the storyline contained such colourful characters who made the storyline weirdly entertaining. Whilst I enjoyed the overall premise of ‘Keep Her Silent’, I couldn’t help but feel as though there were too many pregnant pauses which were being padded out, even though the author was very clever at keeping her readers eyes glued to the page.
Overall, I found ‘Keep Her Silent’ to be an incredibly promising, interesting, and shocking read and, despite getting teased with little snippets of high intensity, I have everything crossed that Theresa Talbot goes even darker and full of more twists with her next novel – I’m looking forward to it!
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About the author.
Theresa Talbot is a BBC broadcaster and freelance producer. A former radio news editor, she also hosted The Beechgrove Potting Shed on BBC Radio Scotland, but for many she will be most familiar as the voice of the station’s Traffic & Travel. Late 2014 saw the publication of her first book, This Is What I Look Like, a humorous memoir covering everything from working with Andy Williams to rescuing chickens and discovering nuns hidden in gardens. She’s much in demand at book festivals, both as an author and as a chairperson.
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