Review of:
Silent Witness
A Novel by Amy Maida Wadsworth

Silent Witness opens with a car accident. A truck carrying three teenage boys slams into the car of Tony, a lawyer, and he dies a short time later. However, the reader begins to find out that the story behind his death goes much deeper.

That depth is the biggest surprise of the novel. The plot, though aided by inventive twists and detailed setting, is common enough – a murderous tale of corporate corruption. But Silent Witness is elevated above other similar stories simply because of depth.

It becomes apparent, as the novel gets going, that the murder and subsequent clue-finding intrigue is all secondary. The book is about people, not plot. It’s about Annette, the new widow who has moved back to her childhood home; it’s about Becca, a young woman searching for direction; it’s about Warren, a man dealing with past misdeeds and current infirmities. The plot is a vehicle for human interaction, as the reader sees into the innermost thoughts of the characters.

Wadsworth deftly switches narration between several characters, giving us a third-person view of their lives. Through realistic, honest dialogue, the reader sees that the characters are anything but cardboard cut-outs. In a particularly good move, Wadsworth has added several characters’ diary entries – giving us a first-person, intimate look at them that even the excellent third-person narrative couldn’t provide. By the end of the book, they are so well-developed that I found myself thinking of them as real people – I developed an attachment, and actually felt sad that I wouldn’t be sharing their life experiences once the book was over.

The settings add a further dimension to the book, and it kind of surprises me that they do. They aren’t anything earth-shattering – just a small town in rural Utah, and San Antonio, Texas – but Wadsworth paints them so vividly that there is no trouble conjuring up a mental image of anything. It is a testament to her writing skill.

There are problems here and there, but they’re few and far between. There’s a major coincidence in the plot (we’re talking MAJOR), but, like I said before, the plot isn’t the point of the book, so the coincidence is forgiven; so much great interaction occurs as a result that I didn’t mind the problem.

Silent Witness is intelligent, insightful, and emotionally compelling. It seemed less like reading a story and more like taking an intimate look into the lives of real people.

This is Amy Wadsworth’s second book, and a third is due out this spring (2005). If it’s anything like Silent Witness, it’s sure to be a hit.