She Treads Softly: Silent Embers

Sunday, September 6, 2026

Silent Embers

book cover for Silent Embers

Silent Embers by John Carson
10/4/26; 368 pages
Boldwood Books
DCI LIam Brody #3

Silent Embers by John Carson is a highly recommended police procedural/crime thriller and the third novel in the DCI Liam Brodie series set in Scotland.

On Halloween night in Kirkcadly, Fife, 29-year-old Rachel Turner is late meeting her friends Emma and Jess for drinks at The Robert Nairn. She decides to take the shortcut through the graveyard where she is killed and buried in a shallow grave. A blue and white dress, a theatrical costume, is left handing on a tree branch above her, which is a clear message for the investigators. Her body is later discovered by a man walking his dog and DCI Liam Brodie and his team are called in to investigate.

The dress is obviously a major clue that leads the investigation back five years earlier when a devastating fire burned down a local theater, leaving two dead and others injured. Rachel and her two friends were active in the theater before the fire. Eventually there are several ongoing investigations that merge in this suspenseful investigative thriller that also offers some humor along the way. There are also basically three different investigations going on simultaneously. Everything does come together in the end to a satisfying conclusion.

This is another well-written addition to the series. The investigations logically follow the clues and follow up on their instincts and all information they uncover. The characters continue to be portrayed as realistic individuals and the whole team works very well together. As I have read all three of the novels in the series, I know these characters and their backgrounds, but I still think this could be read as a standalone. The pacing seemed a bit slow half way through the novel this time, but I'm looking forward to their next investigation. The series includes: Broken Bones, False Witness, Silent Embers, and the upcoming fourth book, Dead Locked.

Silent Embers is a great choice for those who enjoy procedurals/crime thrillers. Thanks to Boldwood Books for providing me with an advance reader's copy via NetGalley. My review is voluntary and expresses my honest opinion.

No comments:

Post a Comment

John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.