The Silenced by Brett Battles

The Silenced by Brett Battles
Buy The Silenced by Brett Battles at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com
Category: General Fiction
Reviewer: Laura Ketley
Summary: A fast paced action thriller featuring Jonathan Quinn as he faces his biggest threat yet – someone is after his family. A fantastic read for fans of spy thrillers.
Buy? Yes	Borrow? Yes
Pages: 416	Date: July 2011
Publisher: Preface
External links: Author's website
ISBN: 978-1848092884
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In the fourth instalment of the Jonathan Quinn series, Quinn and his team are hired to clean up after an operation and find a mysterious woman has followed them there. Before they can stop her, she disappears. On the next job she turns up again, this time with friends, and things start to go drastically wrong. Quinn must find this woman and stop her, but in the meantime somebody has become very interested in finding out Jonathan Quinn's real identity and is getting closer to his family. Quinn has to make a choice; do his job or save his family?

I've read the Quinn series from the first book and enjoyed every one of them, but this one really stands out. In the first three books Quinn is a mysterious character and whilst he is likeable, I didn't feel that I ever really knew him, no matter how much I read. 'The Silenced' changes this. More and more details about Quinn's personal life and his family are revealed and you get to see a side of him that I had no idea existed. At times he seemed angry and vulnerable – like a normal human being instead of the machine that featured in the other books.

You don't see much of Orlando in this book, which was a shame as I've always really enjoyed reading her character and I was interested to see how her romance with Quinn was blossoming; but you do get to see more of Nate who seems to be becoming more confident with each book. I'm actually dreading him being released as an apprentice if it means we won't see him as much. He is definitely my favourite character.

'The Silenced' had a bit of a slow start compared to the rest of the series. I struggled to get into the first 100 pages, but by page 102 I was racing through it. The punchy dialogue and short sentences means that you read through this so quickly that you can feel your heart race. I could almost imagine myself in the back of the van in the last scenes.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would argue that discovering more about Quinn's personal life has made this the best in the series. I'd definitely recommend it to anyone who has been following the series, but if you haven't, then start with the first book The Cleaner.

In conclusion, a great, fast-paced book about our favourite cleaner/spy.

Thank you to Random House for sending us this.

Further Reading Suggestion:

If you enjoy espionage and fast-paced thrillers then try Typhoon by Charles Cumming, or for a true story about the world of spying try The Terminal Spy by Alan Cowell about the mysterious Alexander Litvinenko.

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You can read more book reviews or buy The Silenced by Brett Battles at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
You can read more book reviews or buy The Silenced by Brett Battles at Amazon.com.

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