Splinter the Silence by Val McDermid

Splinter the Silence by Val McDermid
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Splinter the Silence is a novel centered on the mysterious deaths of several women who were the victims of vicious cyberbullying.

Is it violence if it’s virtual? The outspoken women targeted by the increasingly cruel internet trolls and bullies would probably say so. For some of them, the torrents of bile and vicious threats prove too much. They begin to silence themselves in a series of high-profile suicides.

Or do they? Tony Hill isn’t convinced. But he’s the only one. Former cop Carol Jordan is too busy messing up her life to care. Until she gets an unexpected second chance. Now it’s game on, and the stakes have never been higher.

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It seems that finally Tony and Carol is back as friends after everything that happened with her brother's murder. I quite enjoy having them back to speaking with each other again and it seems that Tony is finally getting to Carol that she has a drinking problem. Of course, it had to go so far for Carol that she has to be arrested for drunk driving before Tony frankly told her that she had to quit. But by then the arrest had already damaged her reputation, which was really bad because the powers that be in the police want her back, but not with a driving drunk sentence. But everything can be fixed. Besides, that is Tony discovering that there is something wrong with the suicides of a couple of women and soon he, Carol and Paula are investigating the suicides.

I found this book story especially good because it finally brought the old team together. I have missed reading about them working together under Carol. The case in itself took some time to get somewhere. And it felt like most of the time the book concentrated on other things than finding a killer. Carol and her drunk driving and the consequences of that took up a lot of the book and I did enjoy reading about Tony finally confronting Carol about her drinking problem and moving into the barn to help her the first couple of days and of course, getting rid of all the alcohol at her her place which didn't make her happy. I do wish that case had taken a bit more priorities it was first towards the very end that books story really started to get intensive. Not that the book was bad, I just got a bit impatient with all the personal stuff. I did enjoy that part when the new team was finally started to put all the pieces together and the manhunt started.

The ending was fitting, I don't want to give it away, but there had to be some consequences to Carols drunk driving and what happened after that. It will be interesting to read the next book to see how it will be dealt with.

Thanks to Witness Impulse and Edelweiss for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!