Silent Witness (Random House Large Print) - Softcover

Patterson, Richard North

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0679774165 ISBN 13: 9780679774167

Publisher: Random House Large Print, 1996

Synopsis

Silent Witness begins in 1967, in a small Midwestern town. Seventeen-year-old Tony Lord, Lake City's star athlete, seems destined for great things. His driving ambition is precisely what attracts Alison Taylor, the daughter of the town's leading family, and it is what sets Tony apart from his two closest friends: Sam Robb and Sam's girl, Sue Cash.

Suddenly everything changes. Alison Taylor is brutally murdered, and Tony is the number-one suspect. The town turns against him. His friendship with Sam is destroyed. And Tony leaves Lake City, vowing never to return.

Twenty-seven years later, an urgent phone call from Sue changes Tony's life once more. For Tony Lord is now a San Francisco lawyer -- a relentless advocate dedicated to the defense of his clients. Sue's plea for help is one he cannot ignore: her husband, Sam Robb, now the vice principal of Lake City High School, is suspected of the murder of a female student. In seeking to save him, Tony must confront not only the fear that Sam is a murderer, but the concealed passions and buried truths that underlie Alison,s death so long ago.

About this title

Review

In each successive novel since Degree of Guilt, Richard North Patterson has experimented with flashbacks and past tragedies to drive the present suspense of his legal thrillers. Silent Witness is, perhaps, his greatest achievement with the technique as his hero, Tony Lord, is haunted by the 27-year-old murder of his high school girlfriend, Alison Taylor.

In the late 1960s, Tony is the star of the Lake City, Ohio, high school football team. But when Alison is found strangled behind her house, even Tony's closest friend, Sam Robb, suspects him. Alison's true killer is never found, and Tony flees his home town to forge a career as a high-powered, high-profile San Francisco criminal attorney and marries a a movie star. Cutting to the present day, Tony is called back to Lake City to defend his old friend. Sixteen-year-old track star Marcie Calder was found dead on the shore of Lake Erie, and Sam, now the overweight assistant principal and track coach of Lake City High, is the accused. A series of scandals slowly erodes Tony's confidence in Sam's innocence as Tony comes to terms with his own troubled past.

As with Patterson's previous work, Silent Witness is a novel with subtle characters who happen to be involved in a compelling (and authentic-seeming) criminal trial. For dedicated Patterson fans, some insight into the life of actress Stacey Tarrant is a special treat. She's Tony's wife in the present world of the novel but was the lover of Senator James Kilcannon before the senator was assassinated. James was the brother of Kerry Kilcannon, the enigmatic presidential candidate at the center of Patterson's 1998 blockbuster, No Safe Place. --Patrick O'Kelley

From the Back Cover

"This generation's best writer of legal thrillers . . . His strongest fiction to date."
--Entertainment Weekly

"Enthralling . . . The denouement is powerful."
--Los Angeles Times Book Review

"Intense courtroom drama . . . As startling as the bang of a gavel."
--People

A Main Selection of The Literary Guild

Edition details

• Publisher: Random House Large Print
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0679774165
• ISBN 13: 9780679774167
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 720