Silent Witness - Softcover

Patterson, Richard North

4.03

6,250 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312381646 ISBN 13: 9780312381646

Publisher: St Martins Pr, 2011

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After the murder of his high school sweetheart left him shattered, Tony Lord vowed never to return to his Ohio hometown of Lake City. Twenty-eight years later, Tony is a successful California criminal lawyer with a beautiful celebrity wife. He's living the good life...until long-buried memories come crashing down when he hears from an old friend, who needs his help.

Sam Robb is a track coach at Lake City High. He swears he is not responsible for the death of one of his female team members...even though forensic evidence reveals that he's the father of her unborn child.

Back when they were teenagers, Sam stood by Tony when he was a suspect in his young girlfriend's murder--and Tony desperately wants to do the same for him today. In doing so, Tony will have to revisit his troubled past and probe the darkest secrets of small-town life to get to the truth. And what he will find is more shocking than he ever could have imagined....

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Review:

In each successive novel since Degree of Guilt, Richard North Patterson has experimented with flashbacks and past tragedies to drive the present suspense of his legal thrillers. Silent Witness is, perhaps, his greatest achievement with the technique: his hero, Tony Lord, is still haunted by the murder, 27 years ago, of his high school girlfriend, Alison Taylor.

In the late 1960s, Tony is the star of the Lake City, Ohio, high school football team. But when Alison is found strangled behind her house, even Tony's closest friend, Sam Robb, suspects him. Alison's true killer is never found, and Tony flees his home town to forge a career as a high- powered, high-profile San Francisco criminal attorney and marry a movie star. Cutting to the present day, Tony is called back to Lake City to defend his old friend. Sixteen-year-old track star Marcie Calder was found dead on the shore of Lake Erie, and Sam, now the overweight assistant principal and track coach of Lake City High, is the accused. A series of scandals slowly erodes Tony's confidence in Sam's innocence as Tony comes to terms with his own troubled past.

As with Patterson's previous works, Silent Witness is a novel with subtle characters who happen to be involved in a compelling (and authentic-seeming) criminal trial. For dedicated Patterson fans, some insight into the life of actress Stacey Tarrant is a special treat. She's Tony's wife in the present world of the novel but was the lover of Senator James Kilcannon before the senator was assassinated. James was the brother of Kerry Kilcannon, the enigmatic presidential candidate at the centre of Patterson's 1998 blockbuster, No Safe Place. --Patrick O'Kelley

Review:

"Intense courtroom drama...As startling as the bang of a gavel." --People

"This generation's best writer of legal thrillers...his strongest fiction to date." --Entertainment Weekly

"Patterson hits the first line at a dead run....He never slows down....Everything is marvelously plotted." --Philadelphia Inquirer

"Enthralling...the denouement is powerful." --Los Angeles Times Book Review

"Chilling." --The Washington Post Book World

"Hypnotic...[Patterson] is at his finest when he gives the emotions of [his] characters, who are connected by a lifetime of love and resentment, full reign in the courtroom. These are the scenes that his fans will anticipate most eagerly, and they are as explosive and revealing as anyone could wish." --Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"An absorbing read." --New York Daily News

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