Audiobook Review: The Silent Witness by Carolyn Arnold

The Silent Witness
Author: Carolyn Arnold
Narrator: Lisa Rost-Welling
Series: Detective Amanda Steele (Book 3)
Publication: Hachette UK - Bookouture (September 24, 2021)
Length: 8 hours and 49 minutes

Description: It’s four a.m. when her mom shakes her awake. “Get up baby, we’re going to play hide and seek.” The little girl presses back into the dark space, holding her breath as she hears the shots ring out. She knows she’s next....

When the bodies of a local family are discovered on a quiet street in the small town of Dumfries, Virginia, Detective Amanda Steele takes charge of the case. Brett and Angela Parker were shot three times each, leaving no hope of survival, and their tidy suburban home has been ransacked. But there is no sign of their beloved six-year-old, Zoe.

Zoe is the same age as Amanda’s daughter was when she died, and Amanda can’t bear the thought of another little girl in danger. She’s organizing a search for the child, when she notices something strange about the ottoman at the foot of the Parkers’ bed. She opens it to find Zoe, mute and traumatized, but alive.

With Zoe completely uncommunicative, Amanda must find another way to untangle what destroyed this seemingly perfect family. It’s clear that the killer is searching for something the Parkers had, and until she has this monster behind bars, Amanda fears that he may return for Zoe. When she learns that Brett Parker cut short the family’s recent lakeside vacation, she wonders why. What happened at that lake house, and did it ultimately get them killed?

Amanda heads out to Lake Chesdin on the feeling it might be key to the case, and when she finds a cell phone in the murky waters next to the Parker cabin, she knows she’s made a breakthrough. But then terrible news reaches her from Dumfries; Zoe has been taken from her school playground.

Someone wants to silence the Parker family for good, can Amanda catch them before the little girl she’s desperate to protect pays the price?

A completely gripping and addictive crime thriller that will keep fans of Rachel Caine, Lisa Regan, and Robert Dugoni entertained into the early hours.

My Thoughts: This was an entertaining audiobook though a little light on police procedures. Amanda Steele is a police detective who is called in when the bodies of two people are found after a home invasion. Their six-year-old daughter Zoe is missing. This brings back all sorts of memories for Amanda who lost her own daughter and husband in a car accident which also claimed the life of her unborn baby and robbed her of the possibility of more children. 

She immediately begins a search for the child. When Zoe is found hiding in a hamper in the bedroom where her parents' bodies have been found, Amanda is determined to solve the case and protect the child. Zoe probably saw the killers, but she isn't talking. Circumstances induce Amanda to take Zoe home with her to protect her from those who killed her parents which brings back all sorts of old memories.

Meanwhile, Amanda's mother is on trial for murder - a murder she confessed to Amanda that she committed - and Amanda learned that her father once had an affair which resulted in a child. The affair came out when it was revealed that one of the CSI who should have testified at her mother's trial had to recuse herself because she was the "other woman."

The story had a lot of rather unlikely events including a police chief and politician involved in a sex trafficking ring with only Amanda and her partner knowing about it. It was packed with high emotion though. I liked the character of Amanda and was curious about her past activities which I assume are detailed in the first two books of this series. 

The narration was well done. The narrator was good at all the accents and good at building the appropriate suspense.

I bought this one. You can buy your copy here.