SILENT PLAYGROUNDS - Softcover

Reah

3.41

135 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0007351216 ISBN 13: 9780007351213

Publisher: HarperCollins, 2009

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A dark psychological thriller that will hold the reader in its grip from beginning to end, Silent Playgrounds is the stunning follow-up to Danuta Reah’s highly praised debut, Only Darkness.

The path through the park runs from the centre of the city into the wilds of the countryside. At weekends the area is a playground for children and walkers, but during the week it is silent and deserted.

When six-year-old Lucy gets lost there one day, her disappearance sparks a chain of events leading to the murder of a young woman. Lucy tries to warn the people she cares about of the danger: she knows that there are monsters lurking in the rambling park, and she knows that they are getting closer.

What should be a straightforward investigation leads DI Steve McCarthy into a web of lies and evasions, where nothing is quite as it seems and everyone seems to be hiding something. With each step forward McCarthy faces new questions, and if he is to prevent an escalation in violence, he has to find some answers – fast.

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Review:

Praise for Only Darkness:

‘Dark, edgy and compelling, this is a first novel from a writer to watch’
The Times

‘Balancing a neighbourly ethos of community with a claustrophobic menace of intrusion [Danuta Reah’s] setting becomes as unnerving as any of America’s meanest streets’
Sunday Express

From the Back Cover:

The path through the park runs from the centre of the city into the wilds of the countryside, winding through old woodland and past ruined mills that used the river to power the trip hammers and grinding wheels of the steel industry. Now it is a weekend playground for children and walkers, but on weekdays it is silent and deserted.

What starts as a routine missing-child report, when six-year-old Lucy gets lost, ends in the murder of a young woman. Lucy tries to warn the people she cares about of the danger: she knows that there are monsters lurking in the rambling park, and she knows they are getting closer.

Suzanne Milner, who lives next door to the little girl, is haunted by demons from the past. Through her research at a young offenders' centre, she finds herself reluctantly pulled into the web of fear surrounding the young woman's death. As a potential witness to the crime, she inadvertently directs police attention to one of the offenders with whom she works.

An apparently straightforward crime is turning into something darker, nastier and much more complex, and DI Steve McCarthy has to find his way through a maze of lies and evasions. There are many questions thrown into his path, including the most puzzling: why is Suzanne lying to him? But if he is to prevent an escalation in violence, he has to find some answers – fast.

A dark psychological thriller that will hold the reader in its grip from the beginning to end, ' Silent Playgrounds' is the stunning follow-up to Danuta Reah's highly praised debut, ' Only Darkness.'

Praise for
'
Only Darkness'

' Both a love story and a psychological thriller . . . Dark, edgy and compelling, this is a first novel from a writer to watch.'
THE TIMES

'Her [Danuta Reah's} setting becomes as unnerving as any of America's meanest streets . . . Her feel for dramatic pace suggests that she may well do for Yorkshire what John Harvey achieved for Nottingham'
SUNDAY EXPRESS

' Menacing, highly atmospheric thriller . . . Scary stuff given an extra boost by dark and persuasive psychology . . . The genre clearly still has legs'
LITERARY REVIEW

'The author is good at alternating between menace and ordinary of the everyday, between trust and dread. She brings the smell of death quiveringly alive'
OXFORD TIMES

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