Sworn to Silence by Linda Castillo
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
The author has a real knack for description. More than a knack; it’s a real talent. Descriptions of people, places, moods, weather, all come alive. The main character is well-developed, somewhat original (an Amish female), and likeable. I got about halfway through the book thinking it would be getting five stars in my review. Then it began to suffer from all the usual problems. All the other characters were one-dimensional and hackneyed – the tough, underappreciated black cop, the loopy switchboard girl, the politician sheriff, and of course the dark, hard-drinking, bad boy state agent (male) to create sexual tension and work effectively by breaking the rules. The author also seems to feel obligated to paint us a picture of as much gore and sadistic torture as possible, pandering to the readership’s worst elements. I figured out who the murderer was well before it was revealed, and when it was revealed it was done so clumsily it was a big letdown. The killer turned into a comic book villain in an instant, a Jekyll and Hyde transformation. Still, it held my interest up to the end. It helped that the reader on the audiobook was a particularly good actress.