Silent Voices is the 9th book in the modern procedural D.I. Lottie Parker series by Patricia Gibney. Released 5th Feb 2021, it's 436 pages (print edition) and is available in paperback, audio, and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats.

This is a well written, competently plotted, and well paced modern murder procedural with a strong female lead end sympathetic ensemble cast. For me the strongest facet of the book is the complex and very twisty plot. Some of the secondary characters are a bit typey and two dimensional, but the interpersonal connections and the way the author draws out and presents the solution to the mystery more than compensates for the rare bits of dialogue that felt a little like window dressing. There are some heavily foreshadowed plot elements which seemed a little odd to me in context (Lottie winds up having dinner with people of interest in the current investigation which was weird, for example).

The story is told in flashbacks with the counterpoint and development of the plot told alternating between the present time (with Lottie's own wedding ceremony in crisis because of the disappearance/abduction of the groom) and the beginning of the case a week earlier with a series of murders.

Four stars. I would recommend it to fans of modern thriller/procedurals. There is strong language as well as graphic sexual content, so readers should be aware of that if it's problematic. (It's not egregious, and it's pivotal to the plot).

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

“They didn’t deserve to die”

Wow! What more can I say about the adrenaline rush and angst reading this story has caused! I feel like I have been chewed up and spat out! (in a good way, of course)

Over time, as I have been blog hopping and visiting the various site listings, I have come across several of the earlier books in this series, and I truly only wish that I had knuckled down and read them in their entirety, rather than leaving it until book #9 to make Lottie Parker’s acquaintance, as she is definitely my kind of woman, although I’m definitely not such an untidy and messy worker as she is! Having said that, Silent Voices is a totally self-contained story and from my personal perspective, worked great as a stand-alone, with any relevant backstory information working its way to the surface at the right time and in the right place.

The opening page drew me right into, whilst the intense, highly toxic and horrifying storyline held me in thrall until I almost forgot to breathe, and the ending was both explosive yet rather satisfying, at one and the same time. Oh! and that fourth criteria essential for a storyline like this – you can’t be dead – which Lottie only just about manages by the skin of her teeth!

Patricia Gibney definitely knows how to build a multi-layered, nail-biting, complex plot, which left me with just about everyone on my suspect list, and had me first crossing them off, then adding them back in, throughout the story, as the many twists and turns kept unravelling and changing the dynamics at a great rate of knots! The gripping storyline was well constructed, rich in atmosphere, detail and tension, with enough suspense to cause serious health issues for any reader, along with all those well-place red herrings which tripped me up time and again!

There was some skilfully written, intensely troubling and powerful narrative and dialogue, which was seamlessly woven together with authority and total confidence into a disturbing montage of human behaviour, which when unpicked, uncovered, touched on, and highlighted, so many of the social mores and issues of our times. Sorting out fact from fiction, the innocent from the guilty and the troubled from the aggressor, was a minefield of lies and deceit, which was emotionally draining and physically dangerous, often making it almost impossible for Lottie and her team to see the wood for the trees, through the many individual agendas and the maze of menacing thoughts and actions perpetrated by this cast of disparate characters.

The characters definitely make this story, in equal part with that highly textured plot. Leaving Lottie and her team of detectives aside for a moment, the remainder of this rather sprawling, multi-faceted cast were almost exclusively either physical or emotional wrecks, and often both! They led complex lives, mostly below the radar, lying came as second nature to them, and hidden agendas were accepted as the norm. Even those deserving of some support and help, really did nothing to endear me to them, or sad to say, made me want to invest in them. In fact they were so well defined and drawn in fully immersive and descriptive technicolour, that most of them made me cringe and feel the urge to jump into a cleansing shower as soon as they had left the room!

Lottie herself is a very down to earth, middle-aged widow. She doesn’t suffer fools gladly, is definitely not averse to more than the occasional burst of bad language and is unreservedly outspoken in her thoughts about both her suspects, her team (including the man she is about to marry), and her superiors. She is a fierce defender of her children, although never so much that they don’t get a tongue lashing if she thinks they deserve it. I simply couldn’t make my mind up whether she cared two hoots about her team or not, and it looks as though, with the exception of her fiance Boyd, she is about to discover that she perhaps doesn’t know any of them as well as she thought she did! Between them, they have almost as many hang-ups and emotional complexities, as their counterparts operating on the other side of the thin blue line, however Lottie is usually so busy running around chasing her own tail, rather than working through things methodically, that she really hasn’t noticed their shortcomings and may not until it is too late. But by sheer tenacity, grit, determination and downright bloody-mindedness, she gets things done!

In the town of Ragmullin, “Revenge is definitely a dish best served cold”

This is the 9th installment in the DI Lottie Parker crime thriller series. I've been with Lottie through a lot of tragedy and upheaval in her personal and professional life. It seems that she's finally going to have a chance for happiness with her partner, DS Mark Boyd -- until the bodies start turning up in Rugmullin.

A series of gruesome murders of young women in town lead Lottie and her team into a complicated case and a lengthy, intense investigation that takes precedence over the upcoming nuptials. Although the detectives know the cases must somehow be linked, they are having trouble figuring out the motive or identifying a suspect. Boyd has been a bit distracted by the plight of a 15-year-old who seems to have a connection with one of the murder victims. Unfortunately, the police are having a really tough time getting important interviews and information from all of those they are trying to question. NO SPOILERS.

If you're considering this, be sure to read the previous books in the series as you will appreciate the characters more than if you start with number nine. Although I like Lottie, I have a hard time with her character, her priorities, and her approach to her job and home life. It's a good series and I'm glad I've been along for the journey. I wasn't surprised when the identity of the killer was revealed and definitely there were a lot of potential nasty perpetrators and a plethora of unlikable characters. Fans of the series won't want to miss this latest fast-paced thriller.

Thank you to NetGalley and Bookouture for this e-book ARC to read and review.

Silent voices by Patricia Gibney is a crime thriller that will give you pieces of a jigsaw puzzle of a series of poisonings of women.....it will only end with the last piece of puzzle in the last few pages

D I Lottie Parker and her team are on the hunt for a criminal who is poisoning women in a very typical fashion and also the crime scenes are elaborate.
Many characters in the story related and unrelated to these women seem to be the culprits with very good reasons but who actually is? You will need to read the series to find out.

An intricate plot, few reveals happening slowly, lots of turns in the plot. The wedding if the detective is being planned amidst the case .....so a lot of angles in the story. This is the 9 th book in the series but the furst one that I am reading....so even though the crime and the story could be understood as a standalone.....I missed the familiarity with the family and the team that happens when I have read the series.

If you like to read crime thrillers, a police detective who is able, talented and cares less about a few procedure s that could save time....then you will like this story.

I thank Bookouture and Netgalley for providing me with an eARC of the book. The opinions expressed are entirely mine.

Lottie Parker's life seems to be going well. It's just days before she gets married to Mark Boyd who seems to have come through his leukaemia treatment. The story begins just before the wedding & just before the ceremony Boyd disappears!

Back a few days, a young woman is found dead in her bed, she has been poisoned. The girl is close in age to Lottie's daughter so she immediately vows to find out who did this. Another woman is found dead. Rachel was just starting her cosmetic company, Ellen was a psychiatrist. Who wanted them dead & stuffed a piece of broken mirror in their throats? Rachel had attended a drinks do at a new restaurant. Ellen had befriended a teenage girl who happened to be serving there. Annie, the owner & her family seem involved somehow- & what a dislikeable mess they are!! As usual I didn't guess 'whodunnit' but enjoyed the ride!

I've been a fan of this series since the first instalment & I still eagerly look forward to the next one. Thanks to Netgalley & the publisher for letting me read & review this book.

I was so excited to get my hands on Silent Voices by Patricia Gibney, the latest Lottie Parker novel.

If you haven’t read any of this series yet, here’s a recap: Lottie is a detective in an Irish town. She’s widowed with teenaged children and a fiancé with whom she works. Our Lottie is a complicated character and doesn’t take any crap!

In this novel, a young woman attends a restaurant opening party and is found murdered in her house the next day. It isn’t long before a second woman suffers the same fate. A teenage girl called Maddie seems to be somehow connected, and so do members of a local wealthy family, the Flemings.

Every time I pick up a Lottie Parker book I can’t put it down until I’m finished and this one was no exception. Patricia Gibney is the queen of tying loose ends together. I never guess the killer and always enjoy how everything wraps up at the end. I also like the continuity from the previous books. Now if we could just get Lottie and Boyd down the aisle I’d be happy!

Brilliant small town Irish murder mystery series of books, I’m already impatient for the next one.

Thanks to @bookouture and @netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this book, it was a pleasure.

Let me say at the outset that I absolutely fell in love with Lottie Parker from the get go. It's rare to find someone as disinterested in their own wedding as I was in mine! But Lottie had plenty on her mind, not in the least two gruesome murders and the prospect of a serial killer on the loose. Ready to do whatever it takes to solve the crimes, Lottie is fierce yet vulnerable too where her personal life is concerned.

A marriage gone bad, addiction, young women being taken advantage of sexually, dark family secrets, sibling rivalry, employee resentment - all these were offered as possible causes for someone to start this series of murders. The victims were all connected in one way or another and that added to the fear as to who would be the next victim. The story had such an intricate plot that at one point it seemed that every character except Lottie's family, her fiancé, Boyd and her other police colleagues were the only ones beyond suspicion. I liked how all the loose ends were tied together, the mystery solved and there was a hopeful end for the survivors.

The story did not suffer for me not having read the previous books in the series, which only goes to show what a great writer Gibney is. Now for me to catch up on the previous 8 books in this series!

Silent voices is the ninth book in the Lottie Parker series.

This 9th entry keeps you turning the pages and is a wonderful series. You can read it as a stand alone but as in all series, you would miss a lot of the nuances. It's a series that's worth the time although it's grim.

It’s days away from Lottie and Boyd tying the knot. When Lottie is called to investigate the murder of Rachel Mullen who was found murdered by her twin sister Beth. Rachel was just starting her own cosmetics business. She was found murdered with her face in so much pain. She has been poisoned. And then a few days later another body has been found with the same description. Why have these people been murdered and what links them both together?
This is fast paced story which kept me reading, especially the ending, Five stars from me.

FABULOUS crime thriller, well written with suspenseful twists in this superior plot that keeps you guessing throughout. Totally interesting & enjoyable characters. I have read only #1 in this series but hoping to catch up as I have more on my Kobo. RECOMMEND highly. Thanks to NetGalley & Bookouture for this ARC in return for my honest review.

Crime writer extraordinaire Patricia Gibney is back with a chilling new Lottie Parker thriller so brilliantly plotted and crafted it will take your breath away: Silent Voices.

Beth Mullen knew something was not right from the moment she set foot in an empty house. Climbing up the stairs with her heart in her throat, she opened to the door to her twin sister Rachel’s childhood bedroom and got the shock of her life: her twin was cold in her bed, her eyes closed forever after attending a glittering party. When the police are called on to the scene, newly engaged DI Lottie Parker knew from the moment she clapped eyes on Rachel’s dead body that she had been murdered. Determined to find the killer who committed this heinous crime, Lottie vows to do whatever it takes to unravel the mysteries behind Rachel’s murder.

As Lottie begins investigating, she realises that Rachel’s keys and handbag are nowhere to be found. Convinced that finding these items will lead her closer to unmasking the killer, Lottie is floored when she is called to another scene of the crime and discovers that a young doctor has also been found murdered. Like Rachel, she had been killed in the same manner leading Lottie to wonder what linked these two young women and who went to such drastic lengths to silence them forever. Could the key to solving these crimes be at the party Rachel had attended last night? Lottie needs to find the answers to these questions, so she decides to get close to the party’s hostess and untangle the connection between her and these two murders. However, Rachel’s quest for truth and justice is going to put her in the firing line. Somebody is determined to do whatever it takes to keep her from discovering the truth – even if it means hitting her where it hurts the most.

As Lottie’s fiancé Boyd goes missing, will she manage to find him in time before he ends up the killer’s next victim? Can she put a stop to these merciless killings before she runs out of time? Or is it already far too late?

I’m a huge fan of Patricia Gibney’s Lottie Parker series and in Silent Voices, she has once again outdone herself and exceeded all my expectations with a dark, gritty and terrifying page-turner that was impossible to put down. As always, Patricia Gibney knows how to grab her readers from the very first line and once I started reading Silent Voices, it immediately became apparent that I wasn’t going to be doing anything else until I had devoured the entire book.

Lottie Parker is as fantastic as ever. A wonderful human being and a superb detective, it’s always a joy to spend time in her company and in Silent Voices, she owns again uses her intuition, her humanity and all of her skills to get to the bottom of this seemingly impossible mystery.

A top-notch crime thriller from a terrific writer, aficionados of the genre will not want to miss the latest Lottie Parker thriller by Patricia Gibney: Silent Voices.

I really enjoyed this latest installment in the Lottie Parker series, this being book 9. Ireland has so many fantastic authors, and Patricia Gibney is up there with my favourite, I didn't even read the blurb before getting this book.
I love seeing the personal side of Lottie and Boyd, while they still deal with everything going on in their professional lives. The storyline kept me guessing right to the fantastic ending.
If there are another 10 books to come in this series, I know I will read and enjoy them all.

Set in the small Irish town of Ragmullin, 'Silent Voices' is my first book in this (so-far) 9-book Irish series about Detective Inspector Lottie Parker. The book is told from several third-person perspectives, including Lottie, Maddy, occasionally Boyd, and even the victims like Rachel Mullen as they are headed to their fate. Lottie, her fiancé, Detective Mark Boyd, and other police colleagues are called out to investigate the death of 25-year-old Rachel Mullen in her bed. Rachel's identical twin sister, Beth, called them. It is evident to the police that Rachel was murdered in violent and painful circumstances. Lottie and Boyd jump in, police boots and all, despite their wedding being less than a week off. It is left up to Lottie's overlooked daughter, Chloe, to organise a major event in their lives.

Though I marked out the killer as one of a handful of likely suspects within the first third of the book, the execution of the complex plot of Patricia Gibney's crime thriller was suspenseful and page-turning. New, dumbfounding things kept happening. There were plenty of suspicious characters that Patricia Gibney created a potpourri of red herrings from. It seemed that each person in the suspects list in small-town Ragmullin was hiding shady past, behaving suspiciously and was connected to everyone else, particularly the victims. It was all DI Lottie could do to reveal even more of their secrets.

DI Lottie has an abrasive personality. Even her children and fiancé end up facing her abrupt style. A leader of her unit, an experienced policewoman, Lottie doesn't like her female boss pulling her up or telling her to do what is obvious. Yet, Lottie is often telling her own expert team members how to do their job. Do as I say, not as I do, it seems, though this might be a telling device by the author. Not having read books 1 to 8, I didn't understand the relationship dynamic between Lottie and Boyd.

There is one relatable reason Lottie is short-tempered for much of the book. When the body count rises, and no tangible leads or likely suspect – read serial killer – emerge, Lottie's frustration shows. Especially with her pending wedding, Lottie is keen to solve the murders within five days. However, the DI keeps hitting dead ends as there seems to be no criminal with motivation. As DI Lottie is on warning from her previous unconventional investigations, she has to play according to the rulebook.

The other characters, some nasty, others troubled, emerge as the police uncover Rachel's movements. Wanting to launch a cosmetics brand, entrepreneurial Rachel had been invited to the launch of Annie Fleming's restaurant the evening she was murdered. Annie is in the throes of divorcing local mogul, quarrying magnate, Matthew Fleming. The parents have totally divided the family for years. Their twenty-something daughters, Tara and Jessica Fleming, are in split camps, the former in their father's, while the latter in their mother's.

Boyd happens upon troubled, impoverished teen, Maddie Daly on the road when the chain comes off her bike. She lives in a cold house with sister Stella, her two preschool kids, and Stella’s slimy, dodgy boyfriend, Simon. Then there's Rachel's ex-boyfriend, who keeps turning up in the middle of Lottie's investigation. Everyone, including young Maddy, is a potential suspect.

Finally, as the prologue foreshadows, Lottie's and Boyd's safety is threatened in the final ten per cent. This leads to the culmination that Lottie had hunted for throughout the case.

Some questions. Without divulging spoilers, some gruesome crimes are described with latitude, and largely go unpunished. A darkness forms the substrata to the plot, which might be triggering for some. Examples are children's deaths, rape and paedophilia; the latter is described as a 'relationship'. Also, it wasn't clear how a quarry could be used for a cosmetic business, Rachel's 'Smooth Pebble'. Nevertheless, a readable, enjoyable crime novel. I will certainly seek out Patricia Gibney's other crime books to read.

Thanks to NetGalley and Bookouture for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

From my blog: Always With a Book

This is the 9th book in Patricia Gibney's Detective Lottie Parker series and this series is just so darn good! Yes, it's dark and not for everyone, but I do love my crime fiction and this detective series is one of my favorites!

I love how we are thrown right into things with these books and this latest one might be the most complicated one yet. And all this is going on just days before Lottie and Boyd's wedding - a time that is normally a little stressful but when you add in a case full of dead-ends and more questions than answers, the stress just keeps piling up.

I think my favorite part of this series is that while the case is going on, we have such great character development. And on top of that, in a series that is 9 books in, there is still a sense of uniqueness to this series. I don't feel that I am reading the same book over and over and I so appreciate that.

These books are action-packed and keep you on your toes. You are never quite sure where things are headed, and as always, we have sections that are told from the killer's point of view, but we aren't give clues as to who it might be. We are also given flashbacks to the past and boy does this give us insight into the murderer's head.

I can't recommend this series enough and I am looking forward to seeing what comes next. I truly believe that this is a series that just gets better with each new book!

I am loving the Lottie Parker series, it gets better with every book. This had me gripped from the start, I didn't want it to end.
I'm looking forward to reading the next one.

Silent Voices is book number nine in the D.I. Lottie Parker Series by Patricia Gibney. It follows Lottie and her team as they race against the clock to in order discover the identity of a murderer in Ragmullin.

I found the storyline to be intriguing and it always had me guessing right until the very end. I found the pace to be a bit slow sometimes but when the pace picked up became more enjoyable. I really like Lottie and Boyd because I think that they really completed each other.

This was the first book from the series which I have read and I found it easy to follow. Although I do recommend reading the series from the beginning because there is a subplot which I was missing a lot of. I never discovered the identity of the murderer because there were so many good suspects.

I recieved an advanced copy for free, and this is my honest opinion.

Book 9 in the hugely enjoyable series
A complex, without being confusing, story of the investigation into a series of murders where women are poisoned
The deaths are horrifically brutal without being gory
The characters are stunning
This has to be read as part of the series and would not be as good if the previous books haven’t been read
Hence my 4/5 stars
If you could read it as a standalone it would be 5 all day long.

Silent Voices is the ninth instalment in the Detective Inspector Lottie Parker series, set in the small town of Ragmullin. Lottie and colleagues at Ragmullin An Garda Síochána are called out to investigate a crime scene at Rachel Mullen’s home after her body was discovered by her twin sister, Beth. But when Lottie enters the bedroom she realises very quickly that it looks like murder. Rachel’s agonised death mask rocks the police team to their core as it looks like she was poisoned and had a terribly painful, drawn out death much akin to torture. They begin investigating but they quickly run out of leads and the case sadly turns cold. Soon they realise that there is a brutal serial killer on the loose in Ragmullin when the corpse of a second woman is discovered in similar circumstances. Both women were found with a shard of glass in their throat irrevocably linking the two killings; a unique signature - it's clear the killer wants them to know that he is responsible for both the slayings. Then to make matters worse Lottie’s fiance, Boyd, vanishes. Lottie knows it has something to do with the case and that someone is messing with her purposefully. Can she locate and bring Boyd to safety before he too gets killed?

This is a riveting and compulsive cross between a tense police procedural and emotional thriller with more than enough to sink your teeth into, and from the opening pages you are landed right slap bang in the middle of the action and intense drama, which allows you to become fully immersed and invested in the story easily and rapidly. Lottie is a formidable protagonist and is both resourceful and tough with an unbounded thirst for truth and justice. She has a lot going on in her personal life which adds an extra dimension and element of interest to the story as she tries to locate missing Boyd before their wedding day arrives. We find out a little more of her backstory and hope she can find a little happiness despite having faced unspeakable trauma in the past. Gibney’s characterisation is effortless and superb and the realistic suspense with a plethora of twists, turns and misdirection thrown in for good measure, has you glued to the pages and reading long into the night. The plotting is intelligent and precise, the dialogue true to life and the surprises plentiful, and I found myself racing through the pages. This is right up there with the past books in the series and is a compelling and enthralling read penned by a must-read crime writer. It's a propulsive, fast-paced affair with scintillating suspense and one I highly recommend.

Another great read in this brilliant series.
It’s like catching up with old friends now and the book starts with Lottie getting dressed on her wedding day.
It comes to an abrupt holt as Boyd is missing....
We then go back a few days and find out there have been several murders and Lottie and Boyd have their hands full with the investigations.
The victims all seem to have links to each other but finding the motive and the identity of the killer proves to be tricky.
I loved Maddy and was rooting for things to work out for her.
We then reach the day of the wedding and find out what happened to Boyd.
This is yet another brilliant book from Patricia Gibney and I can highly recommend this series.
Thanks to Bookouture and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book.

Detective Lottie Parker has another case on her hands. She does feel quite bad for the victim, Rachel Mullen, and wants the killer found as soon as possible. What is more is that Lottie is days away from marrying Boyd, a fellow officer. Their relationship has definitely had its ups and downs, not the least of which is the fact that Boyd has had to deal with a very serious illness. Will Lottie and her team be able to solve this most recent murder and actually marry on the day they planned?

The circumstances surrounding Rachel's death is she was found the morning after a party by her twin sister. There is a very particular piece of evidence found on Rachel's body, and Lottie's experience tells her that this evidence is the key to the killer's identity. Then there is another victim, again with the same evidence. Lottie has no doubt the cases are connected and does whatever she can to get to the bottom of things.

While much needed attention is given to the case, Boyd finds himself distracted with a young girl named Maddy. Maddy lives in deplorable conditions with her sister, niece and nephew. What is it about Maddy that draws Boyd's attention so much? As things begin to happen, and now involving Maddy, both Lottie and Boyd begin to seriously worry about her safety.

This fast-paced story was tragic on several levels. While breathing a sigh of relief for Boyd's recovery, I was filled with angst wondering if he and Lottie would have their wedding day. Then I really felt for Maddy. Her situation was dire, but this girl had a heart of gold. I especially loved relationship with her nephew, Trey. Then there is Lottie's relationship with Boyd and her three children. She is a remarkable character and I have enjoyed every single book in this series. I don't know what else is in store for Lottie, and I can't wait for the next book so that I can find out.

Many thanks for Bookouture and to NetGalley for this ARC for review. This is my honest opinion.

Another suspenseful thriller in this amazing series! Lottie feels like a friend at this point, and each book keeps me hooked from the start, and finding myself relating to all the characters in some sort of way. These books are gold.