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Silence in Court
This classic courtroom drama alternates between a murder trial and the events leading up to the crime. With mystery, motive, and an abundance of suspects, Silence in Court, from the author of the acclaimed Miss Silver Mysteries, will keep readers guessing right until the end.
224 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1945
138 people are currently reading
167 people want to read
About the author
Patricia Wentworth
164 books524 followersPatricia Wentworth--born Dora Amy Elles--was a British crime fiction writer.
She was educated privately and at Blackheath High School in London. After the death of her first husband, George F. Dillon, in 1906, she settled in Camberley, Surrey. She married George Oliver Turnbull in 1920 and they had one daughter.
She wrote a series of 32 classic-style whodunnits featuring Miss Silver, the first of which was published in 1928, and the last in 1961, the year of her death.
Miss Silver, a retired governess-turned private detective, is sometimes compared to Jane Marple, the elderly detective created by Agatha Christie. She works closely with Scotland Yard, especially Inspector Frank Abbott and is fond of quoting the poet Tennyson.
Wentworth also wrote 34 books outside of that series.
She was educated privately and at Blackheath High School in London. After the death of her first husband, George F. Dillon, in 1906, she settled in Camberley, Surrey. She married George Oliver Turnbull in 1920 and they had one daughter.
She wrote a series of 32 classic-style whodunnits featuring Miss Silver, the first of which was published in 1928, and the last in 1961, the year of her death.
Miss Silver, a retired governess-turned private detective, is sometimes compared to Jane Marple, the elderly detective created by Agatha Christie. She works closely with Scotland Yard, especially Inspector Frank Abbott and is fond of quoting the poet Tennyson.
Wentworth also wrote 34 books outside of that series.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews
May 19, 2016
I hadn’t investigated a mystery with Miss Silver for ages, I was thinking that it was time I did, but I was wonderfully distracted when I learned that lots of her other books were being sent back out into the world.
More mysteries! I had to investigate!
An excellent introduction told me a little more about Patricia Wentworth, and it told me that she wrote standalone mysteries, that some of them had recurring characters, and that one or two of those characters appeared in Miss Silver stories too.
I was intrigued.
This story stands alone, and it is set in London, in the later years of the war.
“She was so rigidly controlled as she came into the dock that she wasn’t Carey Silence any more, or a girl, or young, but just a will to walk straight and seemly, to hold a proud head high, to bar sight and hearing against all these people who had come to see her tried for her life. There was a moment when the grip she had on herself wavered giddily ….”
Carey Silence was entering the dock on the first day of her trial for the murder of Honoria Maquisten, her grandmother’s cousin and dearest friend. She was scared, she knew the case against her was compelling, and she really didn’t understand how that could be.
Her fear was palpable.
I was drawn in and I was made to care straight away; because Patricia Wentworth was such a good storyteller and so good at creating engaging, likeable and believable characters.
After a first chapter in court the story went back in time, to explain how Carey came to be there.
She had gone to stay with Honoria when she left hospital, after being bombed and left jobless and homeless. They hadn’t met before, because Carey’s grandmother had died when she was very young and there had been family estrangements, but Honoria took to her newly discovered young relation straight away. It seemed that she was just like her grandmother!
Honaria was elderly and frail, but she was undoubtedly head of her household; she had always been – she would always be – formidable and flamboyant.
“What was the good of saying that Cousin Honoria was like the Queen of Sheba and leaving it at that? The Queen of Sheba didn’t wear a vermilion wig dressed about a foot high in several thousand curls.”
She had brought a number of younger relations into her home. There was her nephew Dennis, an RAF pilot who had been invalided out of the War. There was her niece Nora, who had a husband in the Far East and who was employed as the driver of a senior military man. There was another niece, Honor, who packed parcels for POWs and was much less welcoming to Carey than her two cousins. And there was another nephew, Robert, who didn’t live there but visited often.
Honoria kept them all in her thrall, by calling her solicitor in on regular basis so that she could revise her will ….
It was clear that Carey was a favourite, and that she would be gaining from the revisions.
One day a letter was delivered by hand, and when Honoria read it she was furious and she insisted that her solicitor be sent for immediately. He was away? Then his clerk must come instead! One of the beneficiaries of her will – she didn’t say who, she didn’t give anything away – was to be written out.
But before Honoria could sign that new will she was dead – from an overdose of her regular sleeping draft.
Carey was arrested, because she had fetched the sleeping draft and handed it to Honoria; because there were suggestions that she was going to be written out of the will, because Honoria had discovered more about her new-found relation; and because witness statements – from a long-serving maid and a terribly professional nurse – suggested that she was the only person who had the chance to doctor the sleeping draft.
She had been welcomed into the family, but now she was cast out.
Luckily Carey had one person on her side. Jeff, her American beau, had been away on business but he came back to London as soon as he head what had happened, he made sure that she had a excellent barrister, and he made sure that everything that could be done to find out the truth of the matter was done.
Carey had often found him infuriating, but he proved his worth. Though maybe she was too distracted to appreciate that ….
The second half of the book told the same story as the first half; but as a courtroom drama. It could have been repetitive, but I loved seeing the different characters take the stand to give their own accounts, and going over events again gave me a wonderful opportunity to try to work out what had happened.
I wondered for a while if Carey was unreliable – after all, even murderers can be afraid – but I ruled that out quite quickly. That wasn’t Patricia Wentworth’s way, and Carey was far too likeable. I wondered if a certain character was being particularly duplicitous, but I ruled that out too because of his reactions to certain things. And because the real solution was quite obvious.
This wasn’t the most mysterious – or the most complicated – of mysteries, but the plot was well thought out. There were a few little contrivances, but nothing unreasonable. I read a lovely period piece, an engaging human drama, and a wonderfully readable book.
I saw echoes of other books, but the story as a whole was distinctive – and distinctively Patricia Wentworth.
The characters were very well done, the period setting was just as good, and I think the details of clothes and the like were done as well as Patricia Wentworth always does them, but I was too dazzled by Honoria’s flamboyant style and fabulous collection jewels to take as much notice of other, similar things as I might.
I can say definitively that there was no knitting and nobody went anywhere near the edge of a cliff; that is clearly Miss Silver’s domain. She could have stepped into this book, she and Carey would have got on so well, but the story didn’t need her and I didn’t miss her too much.
But I am looking forward to meeting her again.
I have lots more Miss Silver books to read, and now I have a stack of Patricia Wentworth’s other books to investigate.
More mysteries! I had to investigate!
An excellent introduction told me a little more about Patricia Wentworth, and it told me that she wrote standalone mysteries, that some of them had recurring characters, and that one or two of those characters appeared in Miss Silver stories too.
I was intrigued.
This story stands alone, and it is set in London, in the later years of the war.
“She was so rigidly controlled as she came into the dock that she wasn’t Carey Silence any more, or a girl, or young, but just a will to walk straight and seemly, to hold a proud head high, to bar sight and hearing against all these people who had come to see her tried for her life. There was a moment when the grip she had on herself wavered giddily ….”
Carey Silence was entering the dock on the first day of her trial for the murder of Honoria Maquisten, her grandmother’s cousin and dearest friend. She was scared, she knew the case against her was compelling, and she really didn’t understand how that could be.
Her fear was palpable.
I was drawn in and I was made to care straight away; because Patricia Wentworth was such a good storyteller and so good at creating engaging, likeable and believable characters.
After a first chapter in court the story went back in time, to explain how Carey came to be there.
She had gone to stay with Honoria when she left hospital, after being bombed and left jobless and homeless. They hadn’t met before, because Carey’s grandmother had died when she was very young and there had been family estrangements, but Honoria took to her newly discovered young relation straight away. It seemed that she was just like her grandmother!
Honaria was elderly and frail, but she was undoubtedly head of her household; she had always been – she would always be – formidable and flamboyant.
“What was the good of saying that Cousin Honoria was like the Queen of Sheba and leaving it at that? The Queen of Sheba didn’t wear a vermilion wig dressed about a foot high in several thousand curls.”
She had brought a number of younger relations into her home. There was her nephew Dennis, an RAF pilot who had been invalided out of the War. There was her niece Nora, who had a husband in the Far East and who was employed as the driver of a senior military man. There was another niece, Honor, who packed parcels for POWs and was much less welcoming to Carey than her two cousins. And there was another nephew, Robert, who didn’t live there but visited often.
Honoria kept them all in her thrall, by calling her solicitor in on regular basis so that she could revise her will ….
It was clear that Carey was a favourite, and that she would be gaining from the revisions.
One day a letter was delivered by hand, and when Honoria read it she was furious and she insisted that her solicitor be sent for immediately. He was away? Then his clerk must come instead! One of the beneficiaries of her will – she didn’t say who, she didn’t give anything away – was to be written out.
But before Honoria could sign that new will she was dead – from an overdose of her regular sleeping draft.
Carey was arrested, because she had fetched the sleeping draft and handed it to Honoria; because there were suggestions that she was going to be written out of the will, because Honoria had discovered more about her new-found relation; and because witness statements – from a long-serving maid and a terribly professional nurse – suggested that she was the only person who had the chance to doctor the sleeping draft.
She had been welcomed into the family, but now she was cast out.
Luckily Carey had one person on her side. Jeff, her American beau, had been away on business but he came back to London as soon as he head what had happened, he made sure that she had a excellent barrister, and he made sure that everything that could be done to find out the truth of the matter was done.
Carey had often found him infuriating, but he proved his worth. Though maybe she was too distracted to appreciate that ….
The second half of the book told the same story as the first half; but as a courtroom drama. It could have been repetitive, but I loved seeing the different characters take the stand to give their own accounts, and going over events again gave me a wonderful opportunity to try to work out what had happened.
I wondered for a while if Carey was unreliable – after all, even murderers can be afraid – but I ruled that out quite quickly. That wasn’t Patricia Wentworth’s way, and Carey was far too likeable. I wondered if a certain character was being particularly duplicitous, but I ruled that out too because of his reactions to certain things. And because the real solution was quite obvious.
This wasn’t the most mysterious – or the most complicated – of mysteries, but the plot was well thought out. There were a few little contrivances, but nothing unreasonable. I read a lovely period piece, an engaging human drama, and a wonderfully readable book.
I saw echoes of other books, but the story as a whole was distinctive – and distinctively Patricia Wentworth.
The characters were very well done, the period setting was just as good, and I think the details of clothes and the like were done as well as Patricia Wentworth always does them, but I was too dazzled by Honoria’s flamboyant style and fabulous collection jewels to take as much notice of other, similar things as I might.
I can say definitively that there was no knitting and nobody went anywhere near the edge of a cliff; that is clearly Miss Silver’s domain. She could have stepped into this book, she and Carey would have got on so well, but the story didn’t need her and I didn’t miss her too much.
But I am looking forward to meeting her again.
I have lots more Miss Silver books to read, and now I have a stack of Patricia Wentworth’s other books to investigate.
August 26, 2024
Really good- stayed up way too late in order to finish it- Patricia Wentworth writes great stories with real, living characters
June 18, 2018
This is not, in my opinion, the best Wentworth mystery but it is very unusual. Mrs. Maquisten is murdered and Cary Silence is on trial for her life. Published in 1945, it is an interesting picture of an upper middle class English household struggling to deal with World War II.
Cary, an orphan, was injured in during an air attack. In true Wentworth fashion, she has been released from hospital but too is weak to work. Fortunately, her late grandmother's best friend invites her for a long visit.
The eccentric Mrs. Marquisten, who changes her will once a month, makes a will including Cary as one of her heirs leaving her house and fortune to Cary and her 2 nieces and one nephew she has always had as heirs. Suddenly, she gets a mysterious letter and announces that she is disowning one of her heirs and has decided to make a new will. She is murdered before she can sign it.
Miss Wentworth's heroines are often poor and sometimes hungry but they are NEVER, ever a part of the serving class. The class system in "Silence in the Court" (BTW a delightful pun) is alive and well and the modern reader should keep that in mind while reading this engaging story.
Cary, an orphan, was injured in during an air attack. In true Wentworth fashion, she has been released from hospital but too is weak to work. Fortunately, her late grandmother's best friend invites her for a long visit.
The eccentric Mrs. Marquisten, who changes her will once a month, makes a will including Cary as one of her heirs leaving her house and fortune to Cary and her 2 nieces and one nephew she has always had as heirs. Suddenly, she gets a mysterious letter and announces that she is disowning one of her heirs and has decided to make a new will. She is murdered before she can sign it.
Miss Wentworth's heroines are often poor and sometimes hungry but they are NEVER, ever a part of the serving class. The class system in "Silence in the Court" (BTW a delightful pun) is alive and well and the modern reader should keep that in mind while reading this engaging story.
April 11, 2025
very satisfying read, picks up pace about half way and never lets go. relatable, well fleshed characters. my only gripe is that the solution isn't based on the information already shared in the narrative, one of the basic rules of the golden-age mysteries.
October 9, 2018
Une lecture facile et agréable avec un petit rebondissement à la fin comme on les aime dans les policiers.
July 5, 2023
Whoo boy. Skim read. Everything that happens in the book is repeated three or four times. First we "saw" it happen. Then the characters told the police. Then we heard about it in court. Then after the court case the characters rehashed all the events again.
March 31, 2023
Fontaine je ne boirais plus de ton eau , j'avoue que mon retour de lecture sur la Maison du Loch était tellement décevant que l'envie m'avait passée de découvrir d'autres romans de Patricia Wentworth. Cela aurait été une erreur impardonnable parce que je referme le procès de Miss Silence absolument conquise . Comme quoi ...
le procès s'ouvre, nous sommes à Londres, encore en guerre . Carey Silence est dans le box des accusés et risque la peine capitale. Elle est accusée d'avoir empoisonnée sa bienfaitrice Honoria Maquisten qui l'a recueillie en apprenant qu'elle était la petite fille de sa cousine Julia. La vieille dame est fort riche, entourée de neveux et nièces à qui elle fait miroiter un fabuleux héritage. Habitués à ses largesses, ils voient sans problème Carey entrer dans le cercle des héritiers ...
Jusqu'au jour où Honoria reçoit une lettre qui va déclencher une colère noire. Trahison impardonnable , son testament doit être modifié sur le champ ... cette décision lui sera fatale.
Patricia Wentworth plonge le lecteur dans les pensées de Carey, une jeune femme fragile mais sincère qui se retrouve piégée. Heureusement Jeff Stewart est là amoureux et omniprésent. Mais sera ce suffisant pour convaincre le jury?
Me voilà réconciliée avec Patricia Wentworth à nous deux Miss Silver...
le procès s'ouvre, nous sommes à Londres, encore en guerre . Carey Silence est dans le box des accusés et risque la peine capitale. Elle est accusée d'avoir empoisonnée sa bienfaitrice Honoria Maquisten qui l'a recueillie en apprenant qu'elle était la petite fille de sa cousine Julia. La vieille dame est fort riche, entourée de neveux et nièces à qui elle fait miroiter un fabuleux héritage. Habitués à ses largesses, ils voient sans problème Carey entrer dans le cercle des héritiers ...
Jusqu'au jour où Honoria reçoit une lettre qui va déclencher une colère noire. Trahison impardonnable , son testament doit être modifié sur le champ ... cette décision lui sera fatale.
Patricia Wentworth plonge le lecteur dans les pensées de Carey, une jeune femme fragile mais sincère qui se retrouve piégée. Heureusement Jeff Stewart est là amoureux et omniprésent. Mais sera ce suffisant pour convaincre le jury?
Me voilà réconciliée avec Patricia Wentworth à nous deux Miss Silver...
October 26, 2020
This book has a slightly different structure than most other Wentworth books, much more cinematic. We start with a young woman on trial for murder, then flash back to how she got there, returning to the courtroom at the mid-point of the book. But then we get the trial which repeats the evidence people gave to the police.
It takes place near the end of the war, with interesting details from the era, such as all the brass numbers and knockers from the houses gone for ammunition production.
We have the usual assortment of hangers on of an old, wealthy, childless woman, vying for a piece of the pie when she passes on. Wentworth would be out of a very over-used plot device if she were French. In France, the pie is divided between family members as dictated by law. In these books, it is dictated by whim, and used as power over people.
When the rich elderly woman and her “lizard”-like elderly maid are described in scenes, I pictured TV's cross-dressed Dame Edna and her maid Madge. There is a major character who is American, which is a nice surprise for this very British novel.
In the end, I didn't enjoy the book as much as I thought I would, due to the repetition of evidence as court testimony. (The cover here on GoodReads really doesn't fit the book!)
It takes place near the end of the war, with interesting details from the era, such as all the brass numbers and knockers from the houses gone for ammunition production.
We have the usual assortment of hangers on of an old, wealthy, childless woman, vying for a piece of the pie when she passes on. Wentworth would be out of a very over-used plot device if she were French. In France, the pie is divided between family members as dictated by law. In these books, it is dictated by whim, and used as power over people.
When the rich elderly woman and her “lizard”-like elderly maid are described in scenes, I pictured TV's cross-dressed Dame Edna and her maid Madge. There is a major character who is American, which is a nice surprise for this very British novel.
In the end, I didn't enjoy the book as much as I thought I would, due to the repetition of evidence as court testimony. (The cover here on GoodReads really doesn't fit the book!)
July 19, 2022
This has a lot of fairly "typical" murder mystery elements to it, at least at this point in the genre: an extraordinarily wealthy widow; several hangers-on relations, a couple of nasty know-it-all servants (well, a companion and a nurse); and a poor relation just brought into the family.
Suddenly, the filthy rich widow finds out that one of them has betrayed her and then - shockingly - is murdered before she can change her will. And - shockingly - the poor relation (whom the rich widow loved) is charged with the murder. Ho hum. We've read and seen this plot 1,000 times already.
Of course, when Patricia Wentworth wrote this book, this sort of plot hadn't been written about, nor filmed, over and over again. It was still somewhat new. And her take on it does have a unique aspect: at least half the book takes place in the courtroom. This is both interesting and also tedious after a while, as the same topics and details are repeated endlessly.
I did guess the murderer, but not the motive, and that was pretty interesting. Never saw that coming, so appreciated the surprise.
I also appreciated that she wrote this in 1945, and the references to how WWII reaching the lives of even the most wealthy are interesting.
Suddenly, the filthy rich widow finds out that one of them has betrayed her and then - shockingly - is murdered before she can change her will. And - shockingly - the poor relation (whom the rich widow loved) is charged with the murder. Ho hum. We've read and seen this plot 1,000 times already.
Of course, when Patricia Wentworth wrote this book, this sort of plot hadn't been written about, nor filmed, over and over again. It was still somewhat new. And her take on it does have a unique aspect: at least half the book takes place in the courtroom. This is both interesting and also tedious after a while, as the same topics and details are repeated endlessly.
I did guess the murderer, but not the motive, and that was pretty interesting. Never saw that coming, so appreciated the surprise.
I also appreciated that she wrote this in 1945, and the references to how WWII reaching the lives of even the most wealthy are interesting.
August 7, 2025
‘Silence in Court’ (1945) is an excellent courtroom thriller without Wentworth’s pet detective. With almost all the household ranged against her as the strange new interloper who was likely to cut them out of Mrs Marquiston's will, Carry Silence is held on a charge of murdering her benefactress.
Although the story is told three times over, nothing is given away until almost the end of the trial, when the god jumps out of the machine and solves the case. And that is the weakness of the plot, not to share all the facts with the reader, directly or obliquely. The murder game is essentially an interactive memory game, after all, in which all the clues are laid out fairly, and perhaps two or even three false clues are added to the mix.
Still, an entertaining read, with the faintest backdrop of the war, in the form of an invalided soldier, a nurse, an ambulance driver, the heroine herself convalescing after enemy bombing raid in which she sustained injuries, and a husband off somewhere in the Middle East.
Although the story is told three times over, nothing is given away until almost the end of the trial, when the god jumps out of the machine and solves the case. And that is the weakness of the plot, not to share all the facts with the reader, directly or obliquely. The murder game is essentially an interactive memory game, after all, in which all the clues are laid out fairly, and perhaps two or even three false clues are added to the mix.
Still, an entertaining read, with the faintest backdrop of the war, in the form of an invalided soldier, a nurse, an ambulance driver, the heroine herself convalescing after enemy bombing raid in which she sustained injuries, and a husband off somewhere in the Middle East.
August 13, 2018
Quel bonheur de retrouver l'ambiance un peu surannée des romans de Patricia Wentworth. Certes, dans ce roman, son enquêtrice fétiche, la délicieuse Miss Silver, est absente mais j'ai beaucoup aimé le rythme de l'histoire de Carey Silence, jeune fille accusée d'un meurtre commis dans un huis clos et où l'argent est bien entendu le mobile... Les personnages sont bien décrits et les relations entre eux convaincantes. Le tout se suit avec plaisir et je ne révélerai pas plus de l'intrigue pour ne pas spoiler mais j'ai beaucoup aimé la manière dont l'enquête et présentée et surtout l'identité du meurtrier (même si, quand on est attentif, on le devine assez vite, il me manquait juste le mobile)
Ce que j'aime : le rythme de l'histoire, le mobile final du crime
Ce que j'aime moins : on devine assez vite l'identité du meurtrier
En bref : Une histoire policière réussie et au charme suranné des classiques anglais
Ma note
8/10
Ce que j'aime : le rythme de l'histoire, le mobile final du crime
Ce que j'aime moins : on devine assez vite l'identité du meurtrier
En bref : Une histoire policière réussie et au charme suranné des classiques anglais
Ma note
8/10
May 26, 2021
Gasp, Gasp!
Patricia Wentworth wrote this when she was fairly old since it is set during the Second World War but she could have written it much earlier since the heroine has more in common with those die away than she does with the brave girls of the war years. That said, there's drills enough to like about the book for me to.recommend it since the house is full of interesting people. Yes, much more interesting than the heroine. There's the Injured Soldier, The Terriibly Busy Driver, The Dropsicle Cousin, and more living under this roof and they all could have done it or could they? It's a good read. Give it a go a go some gloomy weekend when you want to be somewhere else entirely.
Patricia Wentworth wrote this when she was fairly old since it is set during the Second World War but she could have written it much earlier since the heroine has more in common with those die away than she does with the brave girls of the war years. That said, there's drills enough to like about the book for me to.recommend it since the house is full of interesting people. Yes, much more interesting than the heroine. There's the Injured Soldier, The Terriibly Busy Driver, The Dropsicle Cousin, and more living under this roof and they all could have done it or could they? It's a good read. Give it a go a go some gloomy weekend when you want to be somewhere else entirely.
March 15, 2017
Delightful-this mystery has it all!
Wentworth outdid herself with the twists and plot turns in this one, and, as always, a delightful romance at the very heart of the tale. It's from 1945 and I think you'll enjoy the intelligent mystery with great characters and believable chicanery. A big plus for cozy mystery fans is lack of crude language and violence. It's on my favorites list to enjoy again and again.
Wentworth outdid herself with the twists and plot turns in this one, and, as always, a delightful romance at the very heart of the tale. It's from 1945 and I think you'll enjoy the intelligent mystery with great characters and believable chicanery. A big plus for cozy mystery fans is lack of crude language and violence. It's on my favorites list to enjoy again and again.
October 27, 2021
A neat golden age mystery, just like you expect from Patricia Wentworth. This novel differs in one respect, which is ,that instead of focusing on the brilliant deductive capabilities of some quirky, celebrated detective, the story follows a dramatic court trial , where the evidence as it is sifted and more information brought to light, finally reveals the solution at the end. The solution is both twisty yet believable.
August 6, 2019
I did enjoy this story, but Wentworth kept repeating and repeating the salient events to the point that I nearly despaired of ever coming to a conclusion! The ending was a bit drawn out for my taste as well--new clues came to light that didn't need to be included, at least not after the resolution of the mystery. Still, I'll read more Wentworth. :-)
August 25, 2019
It wasn't the most memorable thing I ever read, but the author did a good job of building the feeling of tension and danger, and it was nice to read a British novel where the English guy was the weak one, and the American the heroic one. The WWII angle was also interesting. For $0.99, it was definitely worth a read.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 15, 2018
Free. | In one sense, quite a good one. | The biggest problem here is that everything is repeated so many times. First the narrative is told as a story, then retold to the police, then told again in court by several different people. I just can't care that much about the minutiae of the murder day!
February 4, 2021
I liked the first part of this book, but the trial took up almost the whole second half. Everyone had to tell their version of events and it was rather boring. I really liked Carey and Jeff, but the trial was too drawn out.
October 4, 2021
Not my favorite by this author.
I guess I just prefer the Miss Silver series as although this was interesting, it just did not hold my attention. While I guessed the culprit, the why was not apparent so I did enjoy the ending.
I guess I just prefer the Miss Silver series as although this was interesting, it just did not hold my attention. While I guessed the culprit, the why was not apparent so I did enjoy the ending.
September 3, 2019
Very good
Pretty good plot, but the court scenes were repetitive and a bit boring. The female main character was not very likable. The solution was good.
Pretty good plot, but the court scenes were repetitive and a bit boring. The female main character was not very likable. The solution was good.
April 5, 2020
Good
I read these books when I was in high school and loved them. Especially Miss Silver still good. Years later
I read these books when I was in high school and loved them. Especially Miss Silver still good. Years later
December 2, 2021
Routine murder mystery
Routine murder mystery. Quick read. Nice contrast between English and American criminal procedure for those who are unfamiliar with the differences.
Routine murder mystery. Quick read. Nice contrast between English and American criminal procedure for those who are unfamiliar with the differences.
April 1, 2022
Not what I was guessing for the murderer(s)--delightfully entertaining murder mystery read
March 10, 2023
Such a good read
Silence in court is an intriguing novel that you will indeed recall. The characters are so engaging, but the plot and ending are truly wonderful.
Silence in court is an intriguing novel that you will indeed recall. The characters are so engaging, but the plot and ending are truly wonderful.
January 20, 2024
Very suspenseful!
November 19, 2024
The only thing that could have made this better would be the addition of Miss Silver.
August 22, 2010
This stand alone mystery is a great golden era case. It is told beginning with the POV character in the accused box well into the court battle. We are then taken back & forth to weave the plot threads of the story into an entire cloth.
October 26, 2016
Now here is a lady that knows how to write a mystery. This one holds the reader spellbound almost to the very end. I won't give anything away but this might just be Wentworth's best mystery. Didn't have a clue how it would work out until the end.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews