The Quiet People by Paul Cleave

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?

Multi-award winning bestseller Paul Cleave returns with an electrifying and chilling thriller about family, public outrage and what a person might be capable of under pressure, that will keep you guessing until the final page...

About the author

Paul is an award-winning author who divides his time between his home city of Christchurch, New Zealand, where most of his novels are set, and Europe. He has won the New Zealand Ngaio Marsh Award three times, the Saint-Maur book festival’s crime novel of the year award in France, and has been shortlisted for the Edgar and the Barry in the US and the Ned Kelly in Australia. His books have been translated into over twenty languages. He’s thrown his frisbee in over forty countries, plays tennis badly, golf even worse, and has two cats – which is often two too many.

Review

There are times when I think I have read enough crime fiction over the years that I would be able to get away with murder. But since I am a pacifist… However, basically it would be a pig farm if there was one located nearby or what I now call the ‘Will Carver method’ bleach and then burn the bones in the garden. So when I read the synopsis for ‘The Quiet People’ I knew straight away that this was going to be an awesome book. Who hasn’t thought about this topic?

Cameron and Lisa Murdoch are a pair of successful crime writers, happily married with one son and enjoying being at the top of their game. They constantly joke that they would be able to get away with murder if the situation ever arose. But have they put their words into practice, when their son Zack goes missing? Especially, since they didn’t notice he had been missing for over 13 hours…

‘The Quiet People’ is a triumphant piece of crime fiction. It manages to balance the horror of a child being taken away from its family unit with a social commentary of how we interact with the news and our subsequent actions. It highlights how we view parental roles, the difference in expectations in relation to (I hate to say it) gendered roles. How we jump to conclusions, are judgemental, go for the easiest target and not want to contemplate the real horrors in the world.

I found this book riveting. I started it on Saturday morning and actually rushed through being taken for lunch by my husband so I could get home to finish it! Right from the start you question everything. You know that this is going to be a clever book, so you are constantly questioning what is taking place, whether it is all smoke and mirrors, the clues which are hidden in plain sight. In that aspect it very much like reading a Marsh classic crime novel - see I kept it New Zealand related there! Is Cameron an unreliable narrator or do we take his POV as gospel? At times this is an uncomfortable read, I can imagine even more so if you are actually a parent. I think I would just be constantly terrified as a parent! It’s one of the most visceral of fears and I can even feel my anxiety rising now thinking about losing any of my friend’s kids in this way. Paul manages to convey this brilliantly throughout the book. There were certain points at which I was screaming in my head ‘don’t do that!’. To get that kind of reaction you know the writing is on point. I can’t say too much more about the plot as I don’t want to give anything away. But know I could talk about this book for ages.

Also, can I just point out how good this cover is? There were so many times I ran my finger over the ‘cut out’ detail as I thought it was real!

Please, let me know if you read this one -basically so I can have someone to talk to about it with!