Hodder & Stoughton releases the hardback of House of Silence, the second novel by Patricia Marques, and second in the Inspector Reis Series following The Colours of Death. A certain percentage of the population is marked as ‘Gifted’ with telepathic, telekinetic or empathic abilities, and Inspector Isabel Reis is one such person. She and her partner Aleksandr Voronov investigate a woman’s body discovered in a river outside of Lisbon. It is Marta Nunes, a youth centre worker – and also one of the ‘Gifted’. This minority of people is often viewed with suspicion, and it is found the victim is connected to a number of missing women, all of whom were telepathic. Time is of the essence to trace where the young women went as it is just possible some may still be alive. But had Marta been helping the girls or mistreating them? The author is half-Angolan and half-Portuguese. She was born in Portugal and moved to England when she was eight. She lives in London, and holds an MA and a BA in Creative Writing...

Whilst I admit to not having read the acclaimed first book in the series, I found this one to be a competent storyline suffering from two intrinsic problems. Literally-speaking there is nothing wrong with using the present tense in the narrative, but with the past tense so instilled in story-writing through the ages I found this new angle difficult to get past. It is virtually compulsory for scriptwriting, and so it isn’t the dialogue which grates but rather the descriptive actions, which come across like stage directions far from being comfortably natural in a book of fiction. I thought I would get used to it but I didn’t, so it made for a somewhat removed experience. In other words, I found it impossible to immerse myself in the story. This is just my own opinion; Patricia is the one with an MA and BA in writing, so what do I know!

The other problem is the pairing of the main characters. In police dramas there is so often a necessary pairing that it is essential the players are completely different to each other in terms of traits, mannerisms and opinions, so that there is a created friction – to make them recognisable caricatures rather than ciphers, which is so often the case. Although Reis and Voronov appear to be of diverse backgrounds they still come across as very similar; she suffers at the hands of other people’s emotions, and he keeps an eye on her welfare, being the only real differences detectable for most of the book. I’m reminded of the pairing of Graham Masterton’s DS Jamila Patel and DC Jerry Pardoe (from Ghost Virus and The Children God Forgot), which works much better both in plain sight and subtly. He is a down-to-earth, plain-speaking Londoner, who uses humour to fend-off all ills, and she is a quieter, more formal Pakistani woman who is modern-thinking whilst having been raised with traditional spiritual beliefs.

What can I say? Although, it didn’t flow for me, and failed to drag me along for the ride, I wouldn’t turn anyone away from giving it a try. Or maybe it would be a better idea to begin with the previous novel, The Colours of Death.

5

Ty Power