A Stain on the Silence by Andrew Taylor

This is a novel about ghosts of the past haunting one’s present. The protagonist of A Stain on the Silence is James who has a good job and a wife he adores. The story is narrated in first person by James takes us through his comfortable suburban life being jolted by a revelation made by Lily Murthington, a former lover whom he hasn’t heard from in 24 years.

Lily tells him that their affair from when he was a teenager and she, the step-mother of his school friend, Carlo, resulted in a daughter, Kate. Laid up in a hospice, practically on her deathbed, Lily pleads with James to help Kate avoid going to prison for the murder of her boyfriend.

Does James help? Yes, of course, else this would be a very slim book. But there’s a weightier reason for his assistance. James has a secret of his own - one he’d like to take to his grave. However, Lily has evidence that would destroy that plan. As far as set-ups go, this is fairly sufficient but somehow, the unlikeable characters and the unnecessary running about makes A Stain on the Silence feel like a wasted opportunity. It’s a story that is unable to choose between being plot-driven and character-driven.

With its bleak outlook and almost every major character from James, Lily, Kate to Carlo being either a liar, manipulative or violent, A Stain on the Silence lacks an emotional centre which readers would identify with. In addition, there are parts where the action in this story comes across as solely a means to etch out a character profile and perhaps, justify the end.

The theme of broken families, childhood friendship and deceit in everyday life are never fully explored. I’ve read one other novel by Andrew Taylor called The Scent of Death which is an atmospheric and layered story set during the American Revolution with characters who, though complex have real-life motivations and are decidedly more relatable. Unlike characters in A Stain on the Silence who do cruel things and yet carry themselves with the air of injured sparrows.

The constant flashbacks in James’ narrative are overwrought and feel false since he holds back crucial pieces of information from the reader for no reason other than to spring a somewhat soggy surprise in the final chapters.

Taylor manages to drum up some pace towards the end of the novel by revealing a twist in the final lines of almost every chapter but they left me cold. Arguably, the ending or pay-off at the end of the story in a thriller or mystery, more than any other genre perhaps, is what makes the book. And that is, sadly, A Stain on the Silence’s greatest letdown.

It’s an ending so timid and half-baked that I was left looking to turn a few more pages. It’s open-ended with no real resolution of guilt and the reader is left wondering about the real motivations for certain characters’ actions in the climax. The last chapter of A Stain on the Silence left me with a sense of reading a book which has had its last few pages ripped out.