Lynette Eason's A Silent Terror ~ Reviewed

A Silent Terror
By Lynette Eason
Published by Steeple Hill
ISBN#978-0373443314
224 Pages

Back Cover:

Mistaken Identity. When Marianna Santino’s roommate is killed, Detective Ethan O’Hara can’t fathom the motive. Then he realizes the deaf teacher with the intended target. Marianna must have something the murderer desperately wants. But what? Digging for the truth, the guarded cop tries to learn everything he can about Marianna. Her world. Her family. Her beauty, faith,, and fierce independence. In spite of himself, Ethan finds that he can’t keep his feelings at bay. Soon, he’s willing to risk everything—including his heart—to lay the silent terror stalking Marianna to rest.

Review:

Marianna works at a state school for the deaf located in Spartanburg, South Carolina - an actual school where the author worked. See how Lynette Eason introduces suspense from the very first page,” Something was wrong. Goose bumps pimpled on Marianna Santino’s suddenly chilled flesh as she walked up her driveway.” This story is filled with action, drama and of course suspense.

What I enjoyed most about this book is how the author dealt with a deaf person living independently and what that looked like. She also delved into the aspects of what they would be aware of, because the deaf relied on other aspects of their senses to get them through their daily tasks - senses that we often didn’t tune into.

I didn’t realize that dogs could be trained to help a deaf person, just like they help blind people be independent. You can tell Lynette has compassion for the deaf as she naturally weaves many aspects of being deaf in a hearing world into this story. The way she wrote about this, made me wonder how she could be so aware of such details. In the back of the book, Lynette talks about teaching at a deaf school, and her compassion for them. The authors attention to details concerning the deaf all made sense to me after reading the author notes.

I enjoyed Marianna and her struggle for independence. Although deaf, she wanted to do all she could to be safe and get to the bottom of who killed her roommate and why. It was a horrible thing to find in her apartment, her friend dead on the floor.

When someone suggests that she have her hearing repaired, Marianna lets them know that God made her the way he did and she was doing just fine with being deaf, thank you very much. Marianna says after someone suggests she fix her hearing, “Anything but to get a cochlear implant. And he’d refused to listen to her or her reasons why she didn’t want one. He didn’t want to risk destroying the hearing she had left. She was also comfortable with her deafness and didn’t need to be “fixed.” It was a concept Curt couldn’t compute and refused to accept that she knew her own mind on this topic.”

This is a who-done-it kind of book it right up until the end. Lynette Eason keeps you guessing the entire time. I’ll definitely have to check out more of Lynette’s books. I like suspense stories.

Reviewed by: Nora St. Laurent
Book Club Servant Leader