Review: The Silent Children by Carol Wyer

Title: The Silent Children

Author: Carol Wyer

Series: DI Robyn Carten, #4

Published: December 2017, Bookouture

Format: ARC E-book, 360 pages

Source: Netgalley via Publisher

Summary: 

The boy studied the
bruise turning yellow at the base of his neck. With quick fingers his
mother tightened his tie, and pulled his collar high above it. Her eyes
alone said, We will not speak of this…

Years later, a man is found shot dead in a local park. On his phone is a draft text: I can’t keep this secret any longer. The recipient is unnamed.

Detective Robyn Carter
knows this secret is the key to the case, but his friends and family
don’t offer any clues, and all her team have to go on is a size-ten
footprint.

Then a woman is found in a pool of blood at the
bottom of her staircase, and a seemingly insignificant detail in her
stepdaughter’s statement makes Robyn wonder: are the two bodies are
connected, and has the killer only just begun?

When another body
confirms Robyn’s worst fears, she realises she’s in a race against time
to stop the killer before they strike again. But just as she thinks
she’s closing in, one of her own team goes missing.

Buried in the past is a terrible injustice. Can Robyn uncover the truth before another life is lost?

An
absolutely heart-stopping and compelling serial killer thriller that
will keep you up all night. Perfect for fans of Karin Slaughter, Rachel
Abbot and Robert Dugoni. 

My thoughts: Wow…this series just keeps getting better and better with each new installment! This is the fourth book in Carol Wyer’s DI Robyn Carter series and it was so good. Between the cases, which are so twisted and dark that you can’t help but get caught up in, and the top-notch character development – this is one crime-thriller series you don’t want to miss!!!

What I love most about this series is just how complex and clever the stories are. Interspersed throughout the book we get snippets from the past of a little boy telling about the horrors he and his sister lived through – full of abuse and more. It’s not until the very end that we find out just who this brother-sister pair is…and let me tell you – that revelation is quite the eye-opener! The present storyline has DI Robyn Carter and her team trying to solve murders that just keep piling up…and trying to somehow connect them. But to make matters more complicated, Robyn’s team is forced to share their office space with DI Tom Shearer’s team…for the time being.

The twists and turns this case takes are truly mind-boggling. It’s a dark and gritty case and those short snippets from the past really up the tension and unease…you know that person is somehow connected to the present, but figuring out who and then why is the big question! This book is definitely intense and moves at lightning speed. It keeps you engaged and wanting to know how it’s all going to play out.

Now, if you’ve read the previous book, you know that it ended with a rather big curveball of an ending and that thread was picked up and carried on throughout this installment. A few more incidents happened so that Robyn ends up getting her cousin Ross involved to do some private investigating, and yet while some is explained – one of which caught me quite by surprise! – we are once again left with another ending that has me desperate for the next book!  I’m being a bit vague here so as to not give anything away, but also because if you haven’t read this series yet – I highly recommend you start at book 1. There is so much character development that really carries through from book to book.

So, bottom line…this series is one of my favorites and with each book, the series gains strength. I hope the wait to book 5 isn’t too long!

Books in this series: 

1. Little Girl Lost
2. Secrets of the Dead 
3. The Missing Girls 
4. The Silent Children