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The Price of Silence    by Camilla Trinchieri Amazon.com order for
Price of Silence
by Camilla Trinchieri
Order:  USA  Can
Soho, 2008 (2007)
Hardcover, Softcover

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* * *   Reviewed by Tim Davis

Now available in paperback from Soho Press, a premier publisher of high quality mysteries, crime novels, and literary fiction, Camilla Trinchieri's The Price of Silence examines the remarkable background and the dramatic progress of a murder trial in which fifty-three year old Emma Perotti is on trial for killing An-Ling Huang.

The background of the case is as follows: When Emma first met An-Ling, Emma was teaching English to immigrant students at the Welcome School in New York City; An-Ling appeared briefly at only one of Emma's classes, but then she mysteriously stopped attending.

Remaining fascinated about the enigmatic young woman - apparently an art student and a Chinese immigrant - Emma did not see An-Ling until an accidental encounter with her sometime after the initial contact. Then, because of a curious set of circumstances, Emma and An-Ling went on to become close friends.

As the complex and provocative relationship between Emma and An-Ling intensified, problems arose between Emma and her husband Tom and her teenage son Josh. What Tom and Josh gradually realized was that An-Ling had become something of a surrogate replacement for the infant daughter that Emma had lost more than a decade and a half previously. Eventually, Tom and Josh would discover something much more complicated and disturbing.

Then, when the grotesquely murdered An-Ling was discovered, all the evidence pointed to Emma as the murderer.

The Price of Silence - gripping and powerful as a tale of passion, sorrow, duplicity, guilt, and redemption - is a narrative told in alternating points of view: Emma's, Tom's, and Josh's. With the progress of Emma's murder trial unfolding throughout the novel, with flashback perspectives from the key characters, and with the truth about An-Ling being gradually revealed through her recovered e-mails, The Price of Silence gradually builds to a fierce crescendo within which unutterable obsessions, family tragedies, and intense secrets collide in a pulse-pounding conclusion.

As a mystery, thriller, and psychological drama, Camilla Trinchieri's spell-binding novel is a first-class literary achievement. Don't miss it!

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