The Silent Room: A Thriller (Matthew Ryan)

DS Matthew Ryan of the Northumbria Special Branch steadfastly believes that his colleague and best friend, DI Jack Fenwick, has been framed for concealing unregistered weapons in his home. Jack is detained for questioning and formally arrested. While being transported to Durham to await trial, his prison van is hijacked. Thugs drag Jack out of the van and whisk him away to a secret place where they torture him for information. Meanwhile, Ryan assembles a group of Jack's friends who include Ryan's blind sister, Caroline, Jack's former supervisor, Grace Ellis, and Grace's lover, Frank Newman, a secret agent; they all believe Jack didn't stage his own kidnapping. Together, the friends create a silent room where they can perform investigative research in restricted computer databases without anyone discovering they've been there.

Would you risk losing your career to save your best friend? Would you risk losing your life? DS Matthew Ryan must risk both in order to find DI Jack Fenwick, a disgraced officer, in Mari Hannah's superb novel, "The Silent Room." Hannah's first stand-alone novel functions quite well as both a mystery and a police drama. Who are the thugs who are torturing Jack and what information are they seeking from him? Most all of the main characters are police officers, and the plot is heavily saturated with high-tech police procedurals. This novel reads like non-fiction. Hannah must've been a police officer herself or has done a lot of research. Watching endless hours of CSI wouldn't have sufficed.

Friendship is an important theme throughout "The Silent Room," but so is family. Ryan is very close to his sister Caroline. As I wrote earlier, she is blind. She has Bob, an extremely intelligent, affectionate guide dog. Caroline, who's been blind since birth, has always remained upbeat and positive throughout her life. A successful lawyer and an avid cook, she is an inspiration to us all. She is the type of individual to whom I would be drawn. I've had friends in my life who have constantly lived under dark clouds. They've allowed past tragedies to mar their future to such an extent that they claim they don't have a future. You want to run away and hide from those people. Let me conclude by saying that I found Caroline's character to be rather refreshing. In fact, "The Silent Room" overflows with unique characters.

DI Jack Fenwick has a doting wife, Hilary, and three children. My heart breaks for this young family as they suffer the hardship of not knowing where their loved one is and not knowing when (or if) he will return to them alive. This is one of those novels that makes readers very much aware that not only do police officers make sacrifices but their families also make sacrifices in order to keep us all safe. My father served in the Vietnam War; during this time, my mom and I also served. There were many months that I lived without a father, not knowing if he would come home alive. This July 4th, we should honor the men and women who daily risk their lives to keep us safe and the families they leave behind each morning.

Ryan has a nemesis in the form of slimy, conniving, insolent DS John Maguire. He is determined to prove that Jack's kidnapping was a cleverly disguised escape orchestrated by Jack himself and that Ryan aided him. Maguire will throw anyone under the bus in order to impress his superior, Detective Superintendent Eloise O'Neal. I'm sure many readers have worked with someone like him. I have. Eventually, something bad always happens to jerks like Maguire. As the plot progresses, O'Neal begins to lose confidence in Maguire and begins to lean more and more towards Ryan's insistence that Jack is innocent of illegal weapons possession. Furthermore, Maguire hates Ryan because he became romantically involved with his ex-girlfriend, Roz Cornell, another police officer.

There is some shoot-'em-up action in Mari Hannah's excellent mystery, "The Silent Room." However, her novel is more character driven. It has a tremendous amount of drama pertaining to the relationships between family members and members of the police force. Readers don't receive an opportunity to delve too deeply into the psyches of the villains. I was very glad when several characters were provided the opportunity to leave Great Britain and travel to Norway; it is a beautiful country which boasts the highest standard of living in the world thanks to its vast amount of oil. A higher body count would have made me like this novel more. For example, I'm surprised the drivers of the prison van weren't killed. Overall, I can understand why fans refuse to be silent about "The Silent Room." I am eagerly awaiting Hannah's next mystery.

This had good moments and a action packed ending but I had a hard time following along with this book. It dragged at points and didn't have enough to truly pull me in. A decent read but I didn't truly love it.

a well-written police procedural that kept my interest until the very end. Hope she
writes more with the two main characters!

I'm a huge fan of Hannah's Kate Daniels, and I'm already hooked on this one. I'm impressed by any author who can realisticly develop characters of both sexes, and Hannah is a past mater at it. Matt Ryan is the kind of law enforcement officer any victim would want on her/his case! The other characters are equally well developed. Hannah does an especially good job of providing just the right of back story to weave the many threads of this complicated thriller into a perfect tapestry of intrigue and heroism. Book discussion groups may need extra long meetings to discuss this one! Thanks to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for providing so many hours of reading pleasure.

Former probation officer Mari Hannah has built a fine crime writing reputation on the back of her tales set in the north of England starring Detective Chief Inspector Kate Daniels - in fact last year she won the prestigious CWA Dagger in the Library, a prize for a crime writer's body of work rather than a particular single book. Here, Hannah veers from her popular and acclaimed Kate Daniels series to deliver a hard-hitting standalone thriller (that has itself sparked a new series).

And she does it with considerable aplomb.

THE SILENT ROOM kicks into high gear early, as a prison van carrying a disgraced cop is hijacked by armed men on the way to Durham Prison. But has former Special Branch officer DI Jack Fenwick been broken out by the villains he was allegedly working with, or has the former top cop been actually been kidnapped? Is Fenwick a danger, or in danger?

Fenwick's protégé and friend DS Matthew Ryan has been suspended and is under surveillance in the wake of his boss’s arrest on corruption charges then subsequent break-out/abduction, but still believes Fenwick is one of the good guys – a sentiment few of his colleagues share.

As a manhunt gathers steam and an official investigation sputters, Ryan goes off-grid with a collection of unlikely allies to try to dig out the truth, including retired Special Branch cop Grace Ellis and her shady contact Frank Newman.

Hannah delivers pace and excitement in spades with THE SILENT ROOM, a ripsnorter of a thriller where most of the main cast move among shades of grey. She brings the characters to life as conflicted and multi-layered human beings, rather than just moving pieces for the action-packed storyline. THE SILENT ROOM is almost like a spy thriller blended with a cop story, with all the intrigue and looming threat of covert operations and can-we-really-trust-them allies/enemies seasoning in the investigation of who it was that broke Fenwick out.

There’s a lot to like about this tale which will have you whirring the pages while caring about the people involved. A very good read from a very good crime writer.

I don't understand the great reviews for this--it is so slow and at times just boring that it like trudging through mud.

I think it started out good or I thought it was going to be good but by half way? it was just slow and draggy and you don't really have a clue what is going on at all! and I hate that, at least give a clue where this headed but NO you are still in the dark

I think I could like these characters but I felt like they were actors in a very bad movie that had no plot and just stumbled around

I got this from the library because I don't know this author and I'm always leery of putting money into a book that I don't know the writer

So maybe it wasn't for me but it might be for you, I'm not telling anyone not to read it but for me I consider it a dud