Another great book by Stuart Neville featuring the flawed policeman Jack Lennon. This series is excellent. ( )

I found another great Irish writer: Stuart Neville. I should have found him a long time ago, although I did, unknowingly, read him once before when he wrote under the pen name Haylen Beck. That was a four–star book; this definitely gets five stars.

THE FINAL SILENCE is the fourth book in a series, but I'm relieved that Neville’s next series continues with one of the detectives who plays a major role in this book. I would suggest that you start with Neville's first book in this series (also his first novel), THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST. I wish I had. The majority of THE FINAL SILENCE can be enjoyed as a standalone story, but I think I would have understood the main character better if I had known more of his backstory.

The book begins with a man's suicide. We know he was a bad man but not much more. Later, his niece, Rea (pronounced Ree in the United Kingdom, I learned), a woman in her 30s, finds in her uncle's home a sort-of scrapbook filled with the names of people, notes about murdering them, and keepsakes from each, such as locks of hair. She also finds an old picture of six men, including her uncle and her father. Rea's father is now a politician.

Rea wants to notify the police, but she first calls her parents. Her father's only concern is how this will affect his career, so he doesn't want the police involved. But she does call an old boyfriend, Jack Lennon, a detective with the Irish police, to ask for his advice. Except Lennon is off duty, maybe to be suspended, after what sounds like a previous shootout with another officer. (That's part of his backstory that I would have understood if I had read the earlier books in the series.) He hears her out but doesn't quite believe her.

The story continues with more death, convincing Lennon of what Rea told him. But now no one believes him. Then another detective is introduced to the story: Serena Flanagan. She is convinced Lennon is guilty of murder, and he tries to convince her otherwise while he searches for the true murderer.

The problem with reviewing a five-star book is that you want to write the review well enough that the book sounds as good as it is. But I am also concerned about writing too much and spoiling it. I would rather say too little. Just read it. ( )

Neville is brisk, tough and always surprising -- you think you know what will happen about 25 percent in, then you revise and revise -- and are still surprised by a twist in an always thrilling conclusion. Neville isn't the most "writer'y" writer, but that's fine for his books. I'd describe him as more muscular, with a fine sense of the inner lives of his characters, much more interesting than the mystery itself. As someone who's come to know Belfast a little over the years, I love the way he introduces us to the fascinating, contradictory, troubled city -- spit-polished now, but still fractured and complex just a millimeter beneath. DCI Lennon's a great character -- but so is a new one (for Neville), DCI Serena Flanagan, so human and also a strong, smart woman. No spoiler here, but when she gives another officer his come-uppance (this involves a secret file from a previous mystery, a slammed drawer and a very bloody hand), I wanted to jump up and shout, "Shove it again!" A wonderful stay-up-late read. ( )

I was very hopeful at the start for this book to get a 4.5 or 5 star rating...but after the murder it began to loose momentum. I became very disillusioned with the police investigative team as they refused to listen to reason having already made up their minds. To make matters worse Jack Lennon had already been tried and found guilty by most of his co-workers for previously killing a fellow police officer that was trying to kill him. I just didn't get how they came to that conclusion. Stuart Neville has portrayed his characters to fit very well into the environment of Belfast and the unrest of this beautiful little island that was present at the time that this story took place. Overall, it was a good solid thriller in spite of a few loose ends at the conclusion. I believe that there is going to hope for Jack and his little daughter reflected in future books. ( )

Although he had been estranged from his sister, Ida, for twenty-odd years Raymond’s passing was to have a profound effect on her family. His niece, Rea, it was decided would be given the house, her first. Rea’s father, up–and-coming local politician, Graham Carlisle, sorted out all the legal bindings and the Belfast home would be his daughters. They cleaned out the meager furnishings of Raymond’s lonely living space except foe the back bedroom at the top of the stairs. It was locked separately and they could not find the key.
Rea took a crowbar to the door and forced it open. There was just a chair behind an old desk. The desk contained a single book, an old scrap book full of memento; photographs, hair clippings and finger nails along with a detailed written report of each murder. With her father’s job on the line the police could not be called in so Rea turned to a former beau, a recently suspended police inspector, Jack Lennon, He would know what to do.
Someone else is interested in the book, specially one of the photographs that shows the deceased and a group of men, including Carlisle in politically compromising positions with one of the groups outlawed since the Troubles ended, so when Rea ends up with her head bashed in, Lennon has to assist in the official investigation headed up by a female investigator Serena Flanagan, who has a reputation for not pandering to the type of foolishness that gets policemen suspended.
In this barn-burner of a page turner – I read it non-stop for eight hours – it is easy to get swept up into the short, terse dialogue and the plot that thickens like Irish porridge. I’m hooked on Lennon now.
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