Harriet Klausner's Review Archive
While seeing a client, Westville, South Carolina social worker Caleb Knowles receives an urgent call from the police demanding he immediately come to his brother's home. Caleb arranges for someone else to complete his schedule and quickly races to Sam's home. There he learns that someone brutally murdered Sam's fiancee Anne Farrell. The police suspect the deaf Sam killed his beloved, also deaf, using one of his wooden sculptures as the murder weapon.
Caleb believes his older brother would never harm the woman he loved and planned to marry. When patient Melanie Carson mentions her boss Mr. Edinger in a nasty incident and another client Percy Elias links Edinger with Anne, Caleb feels he knows who the killer is. However, to prove that is very dangerous to Caleb and his family, friends, and associates.
KEEPING SILENT is an exciting amateur sleuth tale filled with twists and turns that will surprise the audience as the plot never loses focus. Caleb is a completely likable person due to his warm relationships with everyone around him. On the other hand, Sam broods too much for the audience to connect with him though readers know he mourns his loss. Not retaining a lawyer at the onset seems rather stupid, yet the plot never slows down for even a paragraph. Carla Damron provides a fabulous debut novel that centers on a powerful who-done-it with subplots involving mental health care and insight into individuals overcoming a silent world.