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Tuesday, May 9, 2023

Book Review: Silence is Golden by Penny Warner (Connor Westphal Mysteries #6)

Stars: 4 out of 5
Pros: Strong mystery, great main character
Cons: Ending rushed, including leaving a sub-plot unresolved
The Bottom Line:
Gold in town again
With murder right behind it
Another fun book



Has a New Gold Rush Come to Town?

Being a California native, I learned about the Gold Rush time in the state’s history early on.  It’s not something that pops up in too many contemporary novels, however.  Yet it makes a perfect plot instigator in Silence is Golden, the sixth Connor Westphal Mystery from Penny Warner.

If you haven’t met Connor yet, she lives in the small town of Flat Skunk in the California Sierra Nevadas, aka Gold Country.  The town is a remanent of the Gold Rush, and mainly survives on tourists these days.  Connor runs one of the local papers.  She also happens to be deaf, which adds an interesting layer to the book.

Gold fever comes back to the area when Sluice Jackson, a local eccentric who spends part of his time digging for gold, finds what appears to be a new gold nugget.  It doesn’t take long before people are flocking to the town attempting to find more gold of their own.  The next discovery, however, is a gold tooth belonging to an old skeleton – a skeleton that Sluice claims is a relative of his who disappeared 150 years ago.

Meanwhile, Connor’s college boyfriend shows up in town with his ex-wife and young daughter in tow.  Connor isn’t sure how she feels about seeing him again, especially as things have gotten pretty serious with her current boyfriend.

And then a new dead body turns up, and the police arrest a person Connor thinks couldn’t have done it.  Can she figure out what is really going on?

Obviously, there is a lot going on, and I was hooked the entire way through.  The book twisted in some ways I wasn’t expecting, and I enjoyed seeing how that played out.  I think the book bit off a little bit more than it could handle, however, as the ending was a bit rushed and one sub-plot was never really resolved.  The ending we do get makes sense, however, and the thing that wasn’t resolved was minor.  Overall, the book works.

It's funny because I don’t think about character’s hearing in the majority of the books I read, but I am very conscious of it when I pick up one of these books.  Since they are narrated first person, I feel like I am unable to hear either as I am reading.  As always, that aspect of the story is used well to increase suspense a time or two and to show how people live very successfully without their hearing every day.

The book is twenty years old, and I always wonder as I read just how modern technology has improved things for the deaf.  For example, Connor still doesn’t have a cell phone.  I can imagine with texting being what it is now, that would drastically change how she communicates with people not in the same room with her.

We do not see quite as much of all the series regulars here, but I enjoyed what we got to see.  I also enjoyed seeing Connor grow and her relationships with Dan, her boyfriend, continue moving forward.  The new characters are all great as well.

Like earlier books in the series, the book does have more swearing than you might expect when you pick up a book like this.  However, it is toned down from earlier books, which I appreciated.

Silence is Golden is another fun addition to the Connor Westphal Mysteries.  If you are interested in meeting a heroine who is a little different from the typical main character, this is a series to pick up.

Enjoy the rest of the Connor Westphal Mysteries.

1 comment:

  1. This looks fun and how creepy to find a gold tooth! Too bad about the rushed ending but that seems to be an issue with cozies in general right now unfortunately.

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