Book Review: Silent Joe

Reviewed By: Harriet Klausner

Silent Joe     Amazon US HC Amazon Canada HC
T. Jefferson Parker
Class/Genre:   Mystery   Private Investigator   Psychological Suspense
Hyperion, Apr 2001, $23.95, 384 pp.

When he was nine months old, his father poured acid on his face, scarring Joe for life. For the next four years, Joe lived in an orphanage until Will and Mary Ann Trona adopted him. Twenty years later, Joe works as a jailer for the Orange County prisons system and as a driver-bodyguard for his beloved father Will, now a county superintendent.

Joe drives Will to a dark area where the latter picks up a frightened twelve-year-old girl named Savannah. However, before they leave, gang members accost them, killing Will. Joe kills two of them while Savannah flees into the night. Joe quickly learns that the deadly Cobra Kings murdered Will. Joe finds out that Savannah was a kidnapping victim, but cannot see the link to Will. Feeling guilty over his failure to protect Will and a need to rescue Savannah, Joe begins to make inquiries. His investigation takes Joe way beyond the Cobra Kings to an uglier picture of his benefactor and a return to his own childhood nightmares.

SILENT JOE is a fabulously complex blending of psychological suspense with a private investigative tale that works because of the main character. The suspense-loaded story line centers on the heroic, but scarred (emotionally as much as his visage) Joe, who is learning more about himself, and his adoptive father and family even while deliberately stepping deeper into danger. T. Jefferson Parker always writes a page-turner, but this is the award-winning author's best novel and hopefully Joe will return for another engagement.

Harriet Klausner

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Harriet Klausner