I loved The Silence not just for the quality of the writing (luminous) or the finesse with which the twists and turns were meted out, but also for the ease with which the setting assimilates the reader into the Australian mindsets of the 1960s. Because the story is so gripping I didn’t even realise how much cultural information I was being cleverly spooned so that I’d have it to hand just as it then turned into a clue, and I had the satisfaction of thinking, Oh, but of course! (as I convinced myself I’d been the one to work it all out...)

For the few evenings I’ve been racing through this, Australia has been on our telly because of the wild fires currently raging. The contrast between these images and the neighbourhood Isla returns home to from UK when her father is suspected of involvement in the disappearance of the woman next door thirty years earlier, could not be greater. On the street where Isla grew up - and where Mandy was last seen - everyone has the ocean right at the bottom of their garden. And yet...things still find a way of heating up.

Earlier this year I listened to a true crime podcast called Teacher’s Pet which dealt with a similar scenario namely, a well-liked young women disappears from her seemingly idyllic suburban life and nobody raises the alarm until decades have gone by. The terrible thing is that the sort of entrenched sexism that allowed the story at the heart of The Silence to happen in the 1960s was still alive and kicking in the 1980s. In other words, with The Silence, Susan Allott has put her pen right on the pulse of recent Australian experience.

Between the juxtaposition of strong female characters our hearts go out to, and the way in which their stories and fates overlapping from the 60s and the 90s, and how harrowing the history of Aboriginal children being removed from their families by the authorities, The Silence is a novel whose time has come. It’s also very easy to imagine The Silence being picked up by Netflix or Showtime as a mini-series. One can only hope Jane Campion and/or Nicole Kidman get their hands on a copy.

With thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for kindly letting me see an advance copy.

The Silence is a riveting novel partly inspired by the Australian Government practise of removing Aboriginal children, known as the Stolen Generations, from their families and placing them in state Homes.

It is 1997 and Isla leaves London to be with her father in Australia where he is suspected in the disappearance of his next-door neighbour, Mandy, thirty years before. The story tells of the difficult marriage between Isla's parents, who emigrated to Australia from the UK, and the marriage of Mandy and her policeman husband Steve, whose job was to remove Aboriginal children from their families.

I found this an excellent book in how the characters are portrayed; also the effect of the disastrous policy towards the indigenous people of Australia on one man, and his inevitable breakdown.

This book deserves all the awards in 2020 and I wish it every success. Many thanks to NetGalley and HarperCollinsUK for the opportunity to read and review The Silence.

Yet another amazing read!! A properly great read couldn’t put it down!! Not what you expect !! All the stars !!

Thanks to NetGalley and HarperCollins UK for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Beautiful, poignant and powerful. One of my favourite reads of the year.

Whilst this book is categorised as Mystery/Thriller it is much more than this. In "The Silence" Susan Allott has written a superb piece of literature that is part mystery and part a microcosm of Australia's social history. First the mystery. This aspect of the novel focuses of the disappearance of a young woman named Mandy in the summer of 1967. Then we fast-forward to 1997, and the phone call Isla receives from Mandy's family in London. Isla and her parents Joe and Louisa, were recent immigrants to Australia in the 1960s and lived side-by-side with Mandy and her husband Steve, a policeman. But in the 1990s Mandy is still missing and Joe, Isla's father, is also nowhere to be found. Furthermore, he was the last person to see Mandy and is now under suspicion of her murder. Isla, is consequently forced to return to Australia to confront the past and prise open the secrets that led to the disparate but connected events that span three decades. This is where the story really comes into its own. The juxtaposition of past with present narratives of events encapsulating the lives of Mandy, Steve, Joe and Louisa are handled masterfully by Allott. Indeed, the sometimes jarring nature of the narratives of the 1960s with the 1990s makes it a much more effective and powerful story because the past is seldom confined to the epoch of history where events occurred - it lives too in the present. Isla soon finds this out on her return to Australia, where the secrets and lies of the past gradually reveal themselves - imperceptibly at first, then like a rolling stone gathers moss the momentum picks up until disparate pieces of the jigsaw come together to reveal the full picture. Influential to the plot is a deeply shameful passage in Australian and British history - the forced captivation of Aboriginal Children. The policies were conducted on the basis of a belief in white superiority and that the aboriginal race would eventually die out. I read this with barely supressed anger and I hope you will, too. In reality, less than 30 years after the policies were discontinued, aboriginal identity, cultural revival and political activism have never been stronger. How this ties into the main plot, if at all, will only be revealed when you read this wonderful novel. Susan Allott has emphatically declared in "The Silence" what a rare talent she is on the literary stage. With the understated beauty of her prose, even when the truths she reveals are far from pretty; her carefully cultivated, expertly constructed narrative, this author will undoubtedly attract many admirers for the poignancy and power of her work.

"The Silence" is one to look out for in 2020. Susan Allott deserves all the praise that will surely come her way.

I really enjoyed reading this book. Never knowing which way it was going to go. It was fast paced. Easy to read. Nice characters with a past. Love a wee mystery in there

I’m being spoilt with great reads lately and here is another one to watch in 2020, Susan Allott’s “The Silence” a quietly emotional and beautifully written novel which has a dark sense of nostalgia to it even as it touches on deeply emotive issues.

Two families live side by side, one of their number disappears, a disappearance not noted until over 30 years later. Enter Isla, drawn back to the childhood home she has avoided, thrown by emerging secrets and her own jagged memories..

The Silence revisits a time in Australian history that I knew nothing about, the author captures the sense of time and place pitch perfectly, moving seamlessly between past and present until the truth comes out into the light. The characters are drawn with an intriguing, authentic set of layers, there is a sense throughout that something bad is coming and in the end this is a classic character drama playing out on a wide canvas, holding the reader in it’s grip from first page to last.

I thought it was excellent, disturbing yet emotionally resonant, descriptively immersive and with an unforgettable finale.

Highly Recommended.

This book isn't your typical suspensive thriller or whodunnit, its much more than that. When Mandy goes missing, it is assumed that Joe, her neighbour, is the killer as he is the last person who saw her alive. Isla, Joe's daughter, comes home from London back to Australia to help her parents, but also find out more about Mandy and her husband, Steve.

Steve is a policeman and works in the forced captivation of Aboriginal Children. this book tells a story about the children who were taken, and in the end at the authors note, Allott talks about how the Australian government have publicly apologised, but the British Gov hasn't. Nor do we Brits really discuss our role in the colonisation and forced captivation and genocide of the Aboriginee's.

So thank you Allot for telling their story. Whilst it must be said, this book focuses more on Mandy, her husband, and her neighbours, and the circumstances of her being missing, it does then focus on the aboriginal families lives, but is more heavily weighted on Mandy and family.
Nonetheless I think it is a very important book, and a great, gripping read.