After the Silence by Louise O'Neill

Author: Louise O'Neill

Title: After The Silence 

Publisher: Riverrun

Published: 2020

Pages: 439

Genre: Mystery / Thriller 

     Nessa Crowley's murderer has been protected by silence for ten years. Until a team of documentary makers decide to find out the truth. On the day of Henry and Keelin Kinsella's wild party at their big house, a violent storm engulfed the island of Inisrun, cutting it off from the mainland. When morning broke Nessa Crowley's lifeless body lay in the garden, her last breath silenced by the music and the thunder. The killer couldn't have escaped Inisrun, but no one was charged with the murder. The mystery that surrounded the death of Nessa remained hidden. But the islanders knew who to blame for the crime that changed them forever. Ten years later a documentary crew arrives, there to lift the lid off the Kinsella's carefully constructed lives, determined to find evidence that will prove Henry's guilt and Keelin's complicity in the murder of beautiful Nessa.

     You know what it's like, your browsing your local book store with no particular titles in mind. But they have that pesky buy one get a second half price. Now we all realize that as book worms this is a trap. You cant help yourself you don't mean to but before you can blink you have an arm full of books. And it would just be rude to put any back especially after those authors spent so long writing them. So you don't look at the price when you get to the till and hope for the best. And that is how I came to be in possession of After the Silence.  Now by no means is this a bad thing except for my bank balance. The story sounded captivating in the way the newest Netflix true-crime mini-series does. You can almost hear the deep voice doing the scrawl about decades-long-buried secrets and elitist rendezvous. It's one of those books that you can feel pulling you in as your eyes scan the back. You simply have to know what happened to the Crowley girl no matter what. 

       Through the course of this book, we get to sink into separate timelines. Two points of the same river, it is only in one however do we get to see the treacherous waterfalls ahead and the carnage it's aftermath has caused. Much like those said mini-series, it allows for a more complete story. Because as we now when faced with dealing with a murderous past people will very rarely tell the truth. In reality, we are far too often left with big blanks in the story never truly getting to the bottom of what happened to the poor victim.  But that is what makes fiction our friend, she can give us those spaces back we can see what drove a killer down a certain path and the ripples that are sent out forevermore. And O'Neill does a fantastic job of weaving this beautiful tapestry to create a masterful book of intrigue and betrayal. It is only in the finishing that we are allowed to see the entire picture she has laid out for us.

     Each strand of her book will lead somewhere and as we pick apart this book and get back to its bones, we can only then see how complex and simple it all has become. Far too often is the case that the keeping of secrets becomes a prison of its own. Her characters shut those very doors and after having locked the doors tose the key back through the bars. It reminds me of the Eagles song Hotel California or more specifically the line  "We are all just prisoners here, of our own device" Her heroes are all bound by a single point in their collective past. It is within this dynamic that O'Neill crafts her narrative. I would not say she leads you down blind alleys so much as she omits facts until she is good and ready to tell us. For me, she understands the power in not only keeping secrets from her characters but also from us. We are teased at what might be. And for me, I think that is where this story finds its power. 

      It's funny how there is something about groups of people who live on small islands together. they form these unique bounds that to those on the outside seem weird and untrustworthy.  I know there is one such place not too far from where I live and each time I visit you kind of get this vibe that they would rather you weren't there. And for the setting of a novel it of course makes for a brilliant sandbox to play in. And for me, O'Neill has brought that same quality to her island's inhabitants. The documentary crew is the unwelcome guest who appears at your door as the clock strikes ten at night.  You might let them in but the sooner they are on their way all the better. There are so many great elements she has built into her narrative that make you feel ever the outsider but you so desperately want to know what these people did and felt the need to bury as deep down as they could. 

     This for me was a complete pleasure to read. With the weather on the turn outside I could sink into these murky depths and poke around into these people's pasts. You want to seek out a resolution and discover why everyone seems to be lying about what befell the Crowley girl. For me, I could not see any way in which O'Neill could have improved upon her yarn. Everything has its place and not only is it some beautifuly craft gothic tale of darkness in the human soul but more unto the point is completely plausible. You could see this in one of those true crime documentaries. This is a book that I can happily recommend to all and I look forward to reading what else this author has to offer.