Silent Words by Joan M. Drury

Silent Words

Joan M. Drury

Joan M. Drury’s Silent Words is a thinking person’s mystery. Part history, part meditation, the novel follows its protagonist, Tyler Jones, to the wilds of Lake Superior’s north shore to claim her ancestral home. Jones, a radical feminist lesbian, has come to honor her mother’s dying wish that family secrets long buried be at last exposed. What she discovers about her mother’s people makes for provocative reading. –This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

From Publishers Weekly

The second in the Tyler Jones mystery series stands up to its claim to being a ‘feminist mystery.’ A middle-aged writer of amazon stature, Tyler Jones is a down-to-earth, sensual woman who is not afraid to be who she is?a recovering alcoholic, single lesbian. Despite a rather unoriginal opening in which Tyler is told by her dying mother to go home to Minnesota and ‘shake the skeletons in the closet’, this is an upbeat, unusual mystery. Tyler makes the trip from California to her grandparents’ former homestead on the north shore of Lake Superior. Amidst renovations, walks in the woods with her golden retriever Aggie, childhood memories, and getting reacquainted with old neighbors and family, Tyler begins to unravel layers of mysteries and lies about her family. Through conversations with town elders, she discovers both the identity and the tortured biography of her real grandmother. Probing deeper into local lore, Tyler finds that the tight-lipped men of the area are hiding much more than simple rum running secrets. With the help of a diverse array of strong female characters?Ellie and Hank, the lesbian spinster siblings next door; Tyler’s cousin Sonny, a foster mom of six; and Louisa’s best friend Vera Johannsen, now in her 90s?a history rooted in misogyny and homophobia begins to emerge from the rocky shores of the lake. The dialogue could be a little sharper (too many sentences like this: ‘Oh Tyler. This is so dreadful, isn’t it’), and the suspense might have been built up more, but otherwise this will make a fine addition to the lesbian mystery category.

Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. –This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Check for it on:

• Amazon
• Goodreads
• Google Books

Details