A Silent Death

by Peter May

Overview

The scorching new thriller from worldwide bestselling author of The Blackhouse, Coffin Road and I'll Keep You Safe.

Spain, 2020



A SILENT VOW
When ex-pat fugitive Jack Cleland watches his girlfriend die, gunned down in a pursuit involving officer Cristina Sanchez Pradell, he promises to exact his revenge and destroy the policewoman.

A SILENT LIFE
Cristina's aunt Ana has been deaf and blind for the entirety of her adult life: the victim of a rare condition named Usher Syndrome. Ana is the center of Cristina's world—and of Cleland's cruel plan.

A SILENT DEATH
John Mackenzie—an ingenious yet irascible Glaswegian investigator—is assigned to aid the Spanish authorities in their manhunt. He alone can silence Cleland before the fugitive has the last, bloody, word.

Peter May's latest bestseller unites a strong, independent Spaniard with a socially inept Scotsman; a senseless vendetta with a sense-deprived victim, and a red-hot Costa Del Sol with an ice-cold killer.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781784295028
Publisher:	Mobius
Publication date:	03/30/2021
Pages:	432
Sales rank:	1,081,373
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.70(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Peter May was born and raised in Scotland. He was an award-winning journalist at the age of twenty-one and a published novelist at twenty-six. When his first book was adapted as a major drama series for the BCC, he quit journalism and during the high-octane fifteen years that followed, became one of Scotland's most successful television dramatists. He created three prime-time drama series, presided over two of the highest-rated serials in his homeland as script editor and producer, and worked on more than 1,000 episodes of ratings-topping drama before deciding to leave television to return to his first love, writing novels.

He has won several literature awards in France, received the USA's Barry Award for The Blackhouse, the first in his internationally bestselling Lewis Trilogy; and in 2014 was awarded the ITV Specsavers Crime Thriller Book Club Best Read of the Year award for Entry Island. Peter now lives in South-West France with his wife, writer Janice Hally.

Editorial Reviews

"As always, May has created some indelible characters. Mackenzie, who has a startling lack of tact and other basic social skills, makes a fascinating foil for Pradell, who has troubles of her own: money worries, a fraying marriage and a beloved, vulnerable aunt who is deaf and blind."
—Adam Woog, The Seattle Times

Praise for A Silent Death



"Another May tour de force."
—Booklist (Starred Review)

Praise for Peter May

"An author I'd follow to the ends of the earth."—Marilyn Stasio, New York Times

"A terrific writer."—Mark Billingham, author of Their Little Secret

"From the first page I knew I was in safe hands."—Sophie Hannah, author of The Next to Die

"May's lyrical prose brings full color to the scenery, and the narrative intrigues from start to finish."—Shelf Awareness, (Starred Review)

"May keeps the stories clear and the pace fast."—Booklist, (Starred Review)

From the Publisher

03/16/2020

At the start of this unpleasant crime novel from May (I’ll Keep You Safe), Spanish police arrest fugitive drug trafficker Jack Cleland on the Costa del Sol after accidently shooting his pregnant girlfriend to death. Cleland blames one officer for the killing, Cristina Sánchez Pradell, and vows revenge, despite her indirect involvement. Scottish investigator John Mackenzie, a socially maladjusted quasi Sherlock Holmes, comes to Spain to transport Cleland to London for sentencing, but Cleland escapes in an attack on his armored transport vehicle. In addition to facilitating a massive drug deal, Cleland intends to make good on his threat to kill every member of Cristina’s family, including her blind and deaf aunt. In her limited role as scapegoat, Cristina has little room to prove her worth. That she allows Mackenzie’s instincts to inform her police work further diminishes her. May drains any dramatic anticipation he builds. This one’s only for the author’s diehard fans. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

2020-02-09
A Spanish cop, incurring a crime lord’s vengeful and wholly unearned wrath, is saddled with a new partner she’s not crazy about herself.

Agreeing to take a late-night call to cover for a colleague who wants to go home to his wife and baby, Officer Cristina Sánchez Pradell, of Marviña’s Policía Local, finds herself face to face with a man she takes to be an armed intruder. Before he can identify himself as Ian Templeton, who broke into his own house after he forgot his keys, he’s startled by a dark figure behind him and fires three shots, killing Angela Fry, the pregnant girlfriend who’d returned with him. Templeton, who’s actually Jack Cleland, a British fugitive widely sought for drug trafficking and killing a cop, blames Cristina’s presence for Angela’s death and swears revenge against her whole family. That includes her husband, Antonio; their 10-year-old son, Lucas; her cancer-stricken sister, Nuri; Nuri’s husband, fellow police officer Paco; and Ana, Cristina’s deaf, blind aunt, whose role will be pivotal. Cleland’s threats ring hollow as long as he’s in custody, but on the journey to transfer him to the custody of John Mackenzie, a disgraced ex-cop on his first day as an investigator for Britain's National Crime Agency, Cleland’s underlings break him out, killing one cop and shooting Paco nonfatally so that he can relay the news to Cristina. Mackenzie, a Scot who has long-standing issues with authority figures of all kinds, is ready to take the next flight home, but Sub-Inspector Miguel López, the chief of Marviña Station, insists that he stay and help Cristina, who clearly needs all the help she can get, however antipathetic its source. As the unwilling partners track down leads to Cleland’s present whereabouts, Cleland, effortlessly outmaneuvering them, zeroes in on one soft target after another. May (I’ll Keep You Safe, 2018, etc.) keeps a few surprises in reserve but not enough to prevent you from thinking you’ve seen this all before.

Familiar thrills lashed to a razor’s edge.

Kirkus Reviews