Sun 29 Aug 2010
A Review by Walter Albert: SARAH RAYNE – Tower of Silence.
Posted by Steve under Bibliographies, Lists & Checklists , Reviews[4] Comments
SARAH RAYNE – Tower of Silence. Simon & Schuster, UK, softcover, August 2003; reprint edition: Pocket, UK, July 2009.
Something of a modern Gothic thriller, with long-buried secrets that are teasingly hinted at throughout the novel.
Selina March has lived by herself in a “remote Scottish hamlet” since the death of her uncle and two aunts, but when she accepts a paying boarder, crime novelist Joanna Saville, her secluded life will be significantly altered.
Saville has come to interview inmates of Moy, an asylum for the criminally insane. Moy’s most notorious resident is Mary Maskelyne, who, as an adolescent, murdered three people.
Mary is cunning and resourceful, and when she, predictably, escapes, she sets in motion events that will precipitate buried secrets into the light where long-ago events will finally be brought to a climax and resolved.
Bibliography [Novels] —
Tower of Silence (2003)
A Dark Dividing (2004)
Roots of Evil (2005)
Spider Light (2007)
The Death Chamber (2007)
Ghost Song (2009)
House of the Lost (2010)
What Lies Beneath (2011)
August 30th, 2010 at 10:24 am
I don’t usually read books with asylums for the criminally insane in them, but Walter, you almost make this one sound worth tracking down.
I probably won’t, but from now on whenever I see Sarah Rayne’s name on a book cover, I’m a lot more likely to take a second look at it.
Have you read any of the others?
August 30th, 2010 at 12:02 pm
Steve, I’m curious as to why you usually do not read novels with asylums for the criminally insane in the story. I’ve read some good ones, for instance Latimer’s Murder in the Madhouse. Shutter Island was interesting also.
I know our wives must have threatened to have us locked away because of our collections, but is there another reason?
August 30th, 2010 at 12:13 pm
Maybe that’s it, Walker. Too close to home.
August 31st, 2010 at 6:33 am
Don’t forget Beeding’s THE HOUSE OF DOCTOR EDWARDES (SPELLBOUND).
But I have to admit for a book collecter (or any true collector) reading about an asylum is a bit tricky. A bit like inviting uncomfortable comparisons.