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Sal Kilkenny #5
Towers of Silence
It’s the countdown to Christmas and Sal Kilkenny is exhausted even thinking about the festive season - after all with one small but demanding daughter, the life of a single mum is pretty hectic at the best of times. So when she is asked to investigate a suicide that a grieving family cannot come to terms with, she turns the case down. Eventually, against her better judgement, she is persuaded to look into the woman’s last hours and is ashamed to realise how little the authorities investigated. Why would a woman so petrified of heights choose to jump from the top of Manchester’s Arndale Centre car park?
253 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2002
11 people are currently reading
92 people want to read
About the author
Cath Staincliffe
59 books322 followersCath Staincliffe is a best-selling, award-winning novelist, radio playwright and the creator of ITV's hit series, Blue Murder, starring Caroline Quentin as DCI Janine Lewis. Cath's books have been short-listed for the British Crime Writers Association best first novel award, for the Dagger in the Library and selected as Le Masque de l'Année. In 2012 Cath won the CWA Short Story Dagger for Laptop, sharing the prize with Margaret Murphy with her story The Message. Cath was shortlisted again with Night Nurse in 2014. Cath's Sal Kilkenny private eye series features a single-parent sleuth working the mean streets of Manchester. Trio, a stand-alone novel moved away from crime to explore adoption and growing up in the 1960s, inspired by Cath's own experience. Letters To My Daughter's Killer was selected for Specsavers Crime Thriller Book Club in 2014 and featured on ITV3s Crime Thriller Club. Cath also writes the Scott & Bailey novels based on the popular UK TV series. Cath's latest stand alone book, The Girl in the Green Dress, was inspired by her experience as the parent of a transgender child. It tells the story of a transphobic hate crime and asks the question: how far would you go to protect your child? Cath is one of the founding members of Murder Squad - a group of Northern crime writers who give readings, talks and signings around the country. Cath was born in Bradford, Yorkshire, UK and now lives in Manchester, Lancashire with her family. You can follow her on Twitter, @CathStaincliffe, which she does when she should be busy writing!
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
November 18, 2017
I quite like the Sal Kilkenny series - the single mother private eye. Here the series reaches the year 2000 or so with two investigations which both turn out to be much more serious than they first appear and lead to a crescendo just before Christmas.
October 20, 2017
Pretty good. Liked the characters.
May 9, 2020
#5. P I Sal Kilkenny. My notes are suicide/murder Bigamy.
July 5, 2023
This was a good read
December 19, 2014
RATING: 3.75
One of the great things about the Sal Kilkenny series is that the reader can really relate to the lead character. In spite of the fact that Sal is a private investigator, her life is extraordinarily normal and routine. As the book opens, she is experiencing total exhaustion as the Christmas holiday approaches. She is not planning to accept any more new cases for the time being. Her resolve disappears, however, when she is approached by a family that is suffering terribly. The Johnstone family matriarch, Miriam, has allegedly committed suicide. Although admittedly a person whose mental health has been fragile in the past, Miriam had seemed to put her troubles behind her and to be forging a productive life. Her family feels that the police accepted the situation too readily and want Sal to investigate Miriam's last hours for their own peace of mind. Their feeling is that Miriam would never have killed herself in the way that the police say she did, by jumping from the upper level of a parking garage. Miriam was almost pathologically afraid of heights. At first Sal is inclined to believe that the police came to the correct conclusion. As she looks further into the situation, though, she begins to have her doubts.
That restful holiday that Sal had planned for herself is further destroyed by another case that she takes on. A distraught woman calls who is gravely concerned about the behavior of her college-aged son. Up until this point in time, Adam Reeve has been a model son. Suddenly, his grades have been going down and he is disappearing for long periods of time. It's Sal's job to follow him and see if she can determine the reason for the turn-around in his behavior.
Staincliffe does an excellent job of realistically portraying the rather mundane job of an ordinary private investigator doing generally ordinary work, all the while balancing the needs of her occupation with caring for a young daughter and her housemate's son. Although I found the identification of a key perpetrator in the Johnstone case to be overly facile, I felt that the various threads in both investigations were believable, although the resolution of the Johnstone situation was less than plausible. The approach overall was straightforward and true to life.
The problem that I had with the book was around Staincliffe's technical writing abilities. In spite of the fact that I was engaged in the plot and really liked the characters, I almost gave up on reading the book purely because it was so poorly written. The sentence construction was atrocious; the book was rife with grammatical errors and poorly punctuated passages. There were incomplete sentences that didn't flow and sentences that ran on, all of which made portions of the reading very confusing. Staincliffe also had a tendency to write some very short chapters (less than 2 pages). The end result was that the narrative felt fractured to me, as this tended to break up the flow of the book. There were 49 chapters in the 250-page book which seemed excessive to me.
Putting that aside, I will likely read more of Staincliffe's work. Her forte is characterization. In addition to the lead characters, I thought she did very well in the portrayal of the children. I left the book wanting to know more about where the characters were going, which is a good sign. I just hope that the author will find a top-notch editor to resolve the technical writing issues.
One of the great things about the Sal Kilkenny series is that the reader can really relate to the lead character. In spite of the fact that Sal is a private investigator, her life is extraordinarily normal and routine. As the book opens, she is experiencing total exhaustion as the Christmas holiday approaches. She is not planning to accept any more new cases for the time being. Her resolve disappears, however, when she is approached by a family that is suffering terribly. The Johnstone family matriarch, Miriam, has allegedly committed suicide. Although admittedly a person whose mental health has been fragile in the past, Miriam had seemed to put her troubles behind her and to be forging a productive life. Her family feels that the police accepted the situation too readily and want Sal to investigate Miriam's last hours for their own peace of mind. Their feeling is that Miriam would never have killed herself in the way that the police say she did, by jumping from the upper level of a parking garage. Miriam was almost pathologically afraid of heights. At first Sal is inclined to believe that the police came to the correct conclusion. As she looks further into the situation, though, she begins to have her doubts.
That restful holiday that Sal had planned for herself is further destroyed by another case that she takes on. A distraught woman calls who is gravely concerned about the behavior of her college-aged son. Up until this point in time, Adam Reeve has been a model son. Suddenly, his grades have been going down and he is disappearing for long periods of time. It's Sal's job to follow him and see if she can determine the reason for the turn-around in his behavior.
Staincliffe does an excellent job of realistically portraying the rather mundane job of an ordinary private investigator doing generally ordinary work, all the while balancing the needs of her occupation with caring for a young daughter and her housemate's son. Although I found the identification of a key perpetrator in the Johnstone case to be overly facile, I felt that the various threads in both investigations were believable, although the resolution of the Johnstone situation was less than plausible. The approach overall was straightforward and true to life.
The problem that I had with the book was around Staincliffe's technical writing abilities. In spite of the fact that I was engaged in the plot and really liked the characters, I almost gave up on reading the book purely because it was so poorly written. The sentence construction was atrocious; the book was rife with grammatical errors and poorly punctuated passages. There were incomplete sentences that didn't flow and sentences that ran on, all of which made portions of the reading very confusing. Staincliffe also had a tendency to write some very short chapters (less than 2 pages). The end result was that the narrative felt fractured to me, as this tended to break up the flow of the book. There were 49 chapters in the 250-page book which seemed excessive to me.
Putting that aside, I will likely read more of Staincliffe's work. Her forte is characterization. In addition to the lead characters, I thought she did very well in the portrayal of the children. I left the book wanting to know more about where the characters were going, which is a good sign. I just hope that the author will find a top-notch editor to resolve the technical writing issues.
March 24, 2013
I have enjoyed everything I have read by Cath Staincliffe and this was no exception. Being immersed in the world of Sal Kilkenny is, for me, like being wrapped in a warm blanket.
There is always a strong sense of place in this writer's work and this was an aspect of this book that I particularly enjoyed - I always find it very satisfying to read about places I know and recognise and, in the case of many of the scenes in this book, places I pass every day.
Sal herself is a character I would love to meet in real life - I love her values, her compassion, her insecurities and her compulsion, despite these insecurities and fears, to fight injustice.
This book has a great plot, fantastic characters and an abundance of local colour. A thoroughly enjoyable read with a very satisfying ending. Loved it!
There is always a strong sense of place in this writer's work and this was an aspect of this book that I particularly enjoyed - I always find it very satisfying to read about places I know and recognise and, in the case of many of the scenes in this book, places I pass every day.
Sal herself is a character I would love to meet in real life - I love her values, her compassion, her insecurities and her compulsion, despite these insecurities and fears, to fight injustice.
This book has a great plot, fantastic characters and an abundance of local colour. A thoroughly enjoyable read with a very satisfying ending. Loved it!
April 4, 2013
I don't usually start a series at book 5, but because I was on vacation, in the heat and laidbackedness of the Florida Keys, I took a chance on an unknown author. That she was English and Mancusian helped a lot. That she was a PI helped more.
I liked the book immensely. The main character had a strong voice with strong ideals and a kickass work ethic. I feel like I should go back and read earlier books in the series, but not overwhelmingly so. I enjoyed the area (Manchester), the hopelessness of some of the characters and the BIG FINISH of confronting the bad guy. All things I love about a mystery novel.
I liked the book immensely. The main character had a strong voice with strong ideals and a kickass work ethic. I feel like I should go back and read earlier books in the series, but not overwhelmingly so. I enjoyed the area (Manchester), the hopelessness of some of the characters and the BIG FINISH of confronting the bad guy. All things I love about a mystery novel.
August 27, 2012
I bought this book because it was 99p for Kindles on Amazon and I was really pleasantly surprised and will definitely read more from this author. Set in Manchester it's full of familiar and authentic references and it's the story of a Private Investigator with perhaps a slightly unrealistic domestic set up - but then many of the British crime greats also do! Very readable and hangs well together - I did guess some of the plot lines in advance but it was no less enjoyable for that. Really good read and has proved very hard to put down on a wet bank holiday Monday!
August 9, 2014
Although I managed to resolve one of her cases myself, I still enjoyed this book. Sal Kilkenny is an easy character to get along with. Each compact book in the series (this is the 5th) centres on her Manchester based investigations which are well paced and tend to cover topical themes. The semi-familiar urban location and the interwoven domestic scenes add a sense of "ordinariness" that make the PI heroine seem more real.
May 19, 2015
Another great read by Cath Staincliffe. What I really like about the Sal Kilkenny series is that the storylines are so believable dealing with normal people who find themselves in predicaments which are quite plausible. Love the main character and her extended family. Hope there is another in this series.
February 18, 2012
Hands down, probably my favorite Cath Staincliffe book to date. I absolutely loved the storyline and could relate to it. I honestly did not see the end coming, she did that good of a job writing around the true evil in the story.
January 25, 2015
An okay very readable crime book - not wildly exciting but a relaxing easy read which is just what you need sometimes.
July 6, 2014
A Sal Kilkenny mystery featuring two very different cases in which Sal is trying to understand the cause of disturbed behaviour.
May 20, 2013
Not your usual P.I. - but who is. This is a very domestic story, but quite enjoyable
September 4, 2014
Good read, didn't turn out as I expected.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews