Cameron and Lisa Murdoch are successful New Zealand crime writers, happily married and topping bestseller lists worldwide. They have been on the promotional circuit for years, joking that no one knows how to get away with crime like they do. After all, they write about it for a living.
So when their challenging seven-year-old son Zach disappears, the police and the public naturally wonder if they have finally decided to prove what they have been saying all this time…
Are they trying to show how they can commit the perfect crime?
Electrifying, taut and immaculately plotted, The Quiet People is a chilling, tantalisingly twisted thriller that will keep you gripped and guessing to the last explosive page.
I'm thrilled to be hosting the blog tour for The Quiet People today, many thanks to Paul Cleave, Orenda Books and Anne Cater from Random Things Tours for inviting me and for my advance copy of the novel.
It's not uncommon for readers and reviewers of crime novels to wonder what goes on in the author's head to inspire them to come up with such dark plots but in The Quiet People that backfires badly for Cameron and Lisa Murdoch. The couple write their crime novels together and have often played on their reputation, claiming they could get away with murder - but when their son goes missing, they become the number one suspects.
Following a sinister prologue, the book opens at a funfair and when Cameron realises he can't see his son, I held my breath along with him. By the time I reached the end of the novel, I can only suggest that it probably needs to come with a health warning! If I wasn't holding my breath, I was almost hyperventilating and I dread to think what it did to my pulse rate... However, Paul Cleave has given me a problem when it comes to writing this review. It's really hard to say much about the storyline without giving away any of the plot and you need to go into reading it without any suspicions as to what will happen - not that you're likely to guess! I had seen the justifiable buzz around The Quiet People but hadn't read any reviews and to be honest, I'm glad about this. So although this review will be spoiler-free, if you want to just take my word for it, stop reading here and go and buy the book (please buy the book!) then that's fine with me.
If you'd like to know a little more, then I can say that the characterisation is outstanding throughout. The chapters are split between the first-person perspective of Cameron Murdoch and the third-person storyline which follows Detective Inspector Rebecca Kent's investigation. Cameron is a fascinating character, one of the most authentically complex I've had the pleasure of reading and his actions and reactions to what occurs here always make sense, even when they shouldn't, as he responds to that inner 'what if?' voice that talks to us all. Kent is a determined, honourable detective but she makes mistakes that she's haunted by. There are brief mentions of her past which led me to discover that she has featured in previous books by Paul Cleave, although The Quiet People is a standalone with Kent as a recurrent character rather than the latest in a series. Other characters are equally as well brought to life; some are entirely loathsome, some behave badly at times but redeem themselves while I was left stunned by the actions of others, as the book twists and turns through its taut, nail-biting plot.
The sense of place is excellent too; Christchurch may be a small city but it's big enough for a small child to disappear and for the masses to form a mob. Paul Cleave might explore whether it is the quiet people we most need to fear but this uncomfortably honest thriller is as much about society's reaction to tragedies as the case itself. We live at a time when social media fuels anger and a desire for instant retribution but as is portrayed here to stunning effect, the memes, hashtags and protests often forget that real people are involved, and that regardless of who the perpetrators may be, there are always victims too.
The pace never lets up as the race to discover what really happened to Zach takes one unexpected turn after another and I tore through this compulsive, terrifying book in just a few hours. The Quiet People is an exciting, almost unbearably tense thriller but it's also a deeply emotional read and it moved me to tears. I'm so grateful to Orenda Books for bringing Paul Cleave to my attention, this is easily one of my books of the year. If you've got this far then thank you for continuing to read on and please take my advice from earlier and go and buy The Quiet People right now!
The Quiet People is published by Orenda Books and can be purchased directly from their website or from bookshop.org, Hive, Waterstones, Kobo and Amazon but please support independent bookshops whenever possible.
Don't miss the rest of the blog tour, details are below.
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