Let the Dead Speak
“He held on to me so tightly it was as if he was trying to stop my heart from breaking by holding it together.” ― Jane Casey, Let the Dead Speak
4.5*****
As a long-time fan of the Maeve Kerrigan series, I was not disappointed by the latest, Let the Dead Speak. I read a lot of mysteries and psychological thrillers, so they sometimes blur into one, and I forget about them again. Not so with this series. The plot is consistently engaging and the characters feel real and well fleshed out. I especially place value on the fact that they develop, time passes, things change in their lives, relationships evolve. Strong characters are, for me, what make stories memorable, and that is certainly the case with Jane Casey's books. The story starts very eerily with eighteen-year-old Chloe returning home to find her mother gone, and the house looking like the scene of a horror film. Maeve and Derwent are put on the case, trying to locate the body of Chloe's mother, Kate, and to uncover what happened to her. The neighbors seem strange and almost everyone connected to the case appears a little suspicious, so that I kept guessing who might be guilty and what their motive could be. At first I thought the book moved a little slowly, and it took a little while for the story to really take hold of me, but when it did, I couldn't put it down. I don't want to give away too many details, but this story has quite a few clever twists and turns and the ending definitely came as a shocking surprise. Casey is very good at creating a mounting atmosphere of tension, which makes you keep turning the pages, anxious to know what will happen next, who is safe, who is guilty and who is dead. I read this book on a long international flight, and it was so gripping, I only watched forty minutes of a film before abandoning it to this better entertainment. After seven books, I feel I really know these characters and I was happy that Derwent had such a prominent role, as he is my favorite and really balances out Maeve (whom I also like, I should mention). This is a series I will happily return to as long as Casey keep writing it. I m such a fan, that I even turned my dad onto it, and he was very excited when I told him a new "Maeve" book had been published, for us to read and chat about. Highly recommended for fans of psychological thrillers, clever plotting, engaging writing and memorable characters!