Tower of Silence by Sarah Rayne

Beware Spoilers!




Literally could not put this book down!!  So ended up with lots to do when I'd finished it - housework, session planning, collecting Jamie from school!!!!  This is the second Sarah Rayne I've read and the second that I have been totally thrilled by. 

This is a book which draws several stories together and to a conclusion in the isolated community of Inchcape and the Scottish secure hospital for the criminally insane at Moy.  The stories start with the survivors of an Indian kidnapping of the 1940's and the effects it has on the lives of those survivors.  Selina March, one of the survivors comes to live with elderly aunts and uncle whose enclosed lives never allow the little girl to grieve or live so she becomes caught in trying to find some way for her parents who died in the tragedy to safely pass onto the next world.  We meet a lonely, frightened spinster striving to keep all of her secrets from the past hidden and struggling to do this against the need to open her home as a bed and breakfast.

Into this comes Joanna Savil an author in the area to undertake research at Moy, and unwittingly the catalyst to the convergence of the several story threads.  At the hospital there is the notorious, now grown up, teenage killer Mary Maskylene (whose sister was one of those who died in the Indian kidnapping) a wicked and calculating killer and the mysterious patient who will talk to no-one.   

Overall of all of this and drawing people to them are the towers, the round tower just behind Teind House the home of Selina March, the bell tower at Moy (where the bell is only rung is a prisoner escapes) and the Dakhma where the children were held in India.  A Dakhma was used to allow corpses to be cleaned by vultures prior to burial and where the atrocity with the kidnapped children and Selina's parents takes place.


When Joanna Savil disappears, her husband, Emily (Selina March's daily assistant) and Dr Patrick Irvine begin to piece together the story and discover the real identities.  The story is dark, it has its moments of horror, but it is a great read.  Most of the characters are well drawn - although most in this story may not be likeable it is easy to see how the effects of such trauma in childhood can affect those adults throughout their lives, especially when that trauma is not addressed.  A fascinating story and interesting to read about the different funerary rights in other cultures.


Ciao Sue Reading challenge 4/20 - currently reading on Kindle TBC and in print Drop Dead Beautiful by Jackie Collins