Product Description

1967, Lake City, Ohio. Tony Lord and Sam Robb, both in their teens, are best friends and athletic rivals. Twenty-eight years later, Tony is a successful San francisco attorney; sam is an assistant principal at Lake City High School. Sam has never left home, and Tony has never returned since the trauma that changed his life: the brutal murder of his first love, Alison, of which he was wrongly accused and which turned everyone, even Sam, against him. Now Sam is a suspect. One of his female students has been murdered. Tony, reluctantly but inevitably, comes back to defend him. At once, Tony is plunged into the unfinished business of his past. In the merciless arena of a murder trial, he must confront not only his fear that Sam is a murderer but also the buried truths that obscure the real meaning of Alison's death. Powerful in its portrayal of the complexities of male friendship, of the darkest recesses of love, and of the many ways in which the past stakes its claim upon the present, Silent Witness is that rare suspense novel which is far more - the kind of story we have come to expect from Richard North Patterson.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #50565 in Books
• Published on: 1998-01-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 448 pages

Amazon.co.uk 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

About the Author
Richard North Patterson has written a number of novels including the international bestsellers, Degree of Guilt, Eyes of a Child, The Final Judgement, Silent Witness, No Safe Place, Dark Lady and Protect and Defend. His novels have won the Edgar Allan Poe Award and the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière. He and his wife, Laurie, live with their family in San Francisco and on Martha's Vineyard.

Customer Reviews

Brilliant
This book is about as good as it gets and is arguably Patterson's best work. The author switches the story from past to present with ease, which helps bring the story together. The story is of Tony Lord, a lawyer, who returns to his home town to help out a friend accused of murder. Patterson has a brilliant way of building each character. The book is so good that you really do feel for the central characters, especially Lord. I did guess the ending before it happened, but only just. Yet it didn't spoil the book, which remains one of my favourites to date. Who is John Grisham?

A real page-turner
This has got to be one of the best books I have ever read. It's enthralling, captivating, gripping and any other such adjectives you can think of. I particularly liked the way in which the author takes the reader back 30 years to set the scene. The attention to detail and the empathetic way in which the reader can identify with each of the characters, especially Tony Lord, is excellent. This book kept me hooked well into the wee small hours of the night. The fact that the ending became quite predictable did not detract from my enjoyment of the story at all. This is the first book I have read by this author, but I'll definitely be reading more. Thanks for lending it to me Sis.

Well done, Richard, keep up the good work!

an absolutely enthralling read
I could not put this book down. An old cliche I know, but entirely true. In the very best tradition of Grisham, a fascinating insight into American court rooms and small town life. The powerful desriptive writing made the reading experience similar to actually watching the story on film. If you read only one book this summer...read this !