Reviews

THE PRICE OF SILENCE

REVIEWS

A Notable Book Sense Pick for June

The Richmond Times-Dispatch

Jay Stafford

The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

It's a concept foreign to Emma Perotti and her family, and it leads to Emma's being

charged with murder in Camilla

Trinchieri's finely wrought novel of secrets and

deception

Each member of this troubled New York City family is burdened with guilt, and each

chooses to bury the truth or ignore

it. An-

ling has her secrets, too. Told through

each of the four voices, "The Price of Silence" is a chilling and memorable

tale of

hearts in turmoil, rendered with grace and intensity by an author who understands

secrets and the devastation

they can

wreak.

Baltimore Sun

Sarah Weinman

Few betray as completely and as cruelly as family, a conclusion Trinchieri reveals

with laser-like precision in this

psychological thriller told from a variety of points of

view. When An-Ling Huang appears briefly in an ESL class taught

Emma Perotti,

it seems to be a chance meeting -- but over time, the two encounter each other

enough to establish

a rapport

that begins as friendship, mutates into a quasi-mother-

daughter relationship and hints at something darker.

Is An-Ling in

search of a new

family, or is she out to destroy Emma's fragile bonds with her husband and teenage

son?

The answers are elusive even when An-Ling is found murdered and Emma is

brought to trial, and even courtroom

dynamics may bring only certain secrets to the

forefront. Trinchieri, author of seven mystery novels under two

separate

pseudonyms, shrewdly mixes up forward-moving court scenes with flashbacks

showing how seemingly simple

decisions

go terribly awry.

Mystery Scene Review

Dianne Day

This is a gripping, tension-filled novel about the consequences of loss, particularly

loss that occurs within a

family. Not

easy read, but skillfully written and moving, a

novel that will stay with you whether you want it to or not.

Gumshoe Review
Ernest Lilley

The Price of Silence is a beautifully crafted story about a family damaged by ...

Richly written with complex and believable human drama and tragedy it's a

compelling story that twists towards its ending without giving up the killer to the bitter

end.

I Love a Mystery

John A Broussard

One feature which makes THE

PRICE OF SILENCE especially remarkable is that the

scene and details of the

homicide

are played out in snatches at

Emma's trial for An-

ling's murder. And these glimpses into the courtroom are

interspersed with the first

person flashbacks of

wife, husband and son, along with the posthumous delivery of

An-ling's

emails which figure in the trial. Trinchieri does a truly

remarkable job of

giving each of the characters voices which

reveal their own, very believable,

personalities. While An-ling

emerges as a congenital and all-too believable liar, the

family's lies are very different. Theirs are deceptions shrouded in a

silence that

continues on to the very last pages of

the novel.

Anyone interested in a story that places heavy emphasis on the

complexity of

human personality will find this to be an

engrossing and fascinating tale. HIGHLY

RECOMMENDED.

CrimeSpree Magazine

Dana Kaye

This beautifully written novel begins with Emma Perotti, an ESL professor on trial for

killing An-Ling Huang, a

young

Chinese

artist, who she took under her wing.

Trinchieri tells the gripping story through e-mails, trial

documentation,

and

testimonies of

the accused and her family. The title says it all as secrets are

revealed with every

turn of the page

and even the reader is

mislead by the

characters’ lies. We know from the beginning that Emma and

her husband had a

daughter that died as a

toddler, but we don’t find out until chapters later the details

surrounding

her death. We know

that Huang is damaged,

haunted by her past, but

we continue to find out why until the very last

page. The suspense

lies not in the

“whodunit”, not in

the supposed murder, but in who these people are and how they

got to the dark place

they’re in now.

rin

chieri demonstrates her skills as a novelist

, using deft multiple viewpoints and

timelines to build her characters and

their

stories. Perotti discusses her relationship

with Huang, recounts times spent and conversations had, but the shift

to her son

and husband’s point of view indicates that she’s not t

he most reliable narrator, often

skewing her true

motives and past

events. The characters keep secrets, hiding the

truth from the reader, leaving us wondering who, if

anyone, we can trust. An

intriguing and compelling story, PRICE OF SILENCE, is one of the best novels I have

read

this year.

Publishers Weekly

A taut psychological thriller. ...the novel is a gripping, intelligent read. Particularly

compelling are its

subtle

insights

into

the nature of family, foreignness and the lies

we tell ourselves and others even when

our

intentions are good.

Library Journal

This is the book for readers wanting to be kept on the edge of their seats. ... A fast,

intense read...

Booklist

Allison Block

..a potent psychological thriller about love, longing and loss.

Mystery Lovers Bookshop

Mary Alice Gorman

The Price of Silence is a riveting summer read for the top of your list. In a tightly

plotted and spare style

that

will

remind

you of Chinese Brush Paintings, she brings

you the death of a young Chinese artist and

the trial of

a woman

accused

of her

murder. It is in the telling that the artistry shines. A must.

ookin' It

Lauren Hansen

... [it's] as much in figuring out motivations as it is in discovering who-done-it. It

reminds me a bit of

Hidden by

Paul

Jaskunas or Revenge by Mary Morris with a bit

of Amy Tan's A Hundred Secret Senses

thrown in. You

won't put it

down.

[

A Bookin' It

Staff Pick

book

]

Kirkus Starred Review

Prolific as Trella Crespi and Camilla T. Crespi, Trinchieri here debuts most

auspiciously as herself.

Romantic Times

Trinchieri¹s dark, suspenseful tale is a riveting piece of fiction that gathers

momentum with every page.

The

mystery

never abates, so readers will be guessing

until the final

chapter

...

Four stars.

Toni Urquhart

This week I was intending to read a mystery called

Because of the Cats

by Nicolas

Freeling (a Felony & Mayhem mystery), that is, until a friend of mine invited me to

meet him at Partner’s & Crime Mystery Booksellers in Greenwich Village for a W-

WOW! Radio play.

The play was held in a tiny stage room behind an out of-the-way door at the back of

Partner’s & Crime. It was my first visit to the store, so after the play I took in the

books, of course. During my self-introduction to the ways and means of crime that

pays, I discovered an autographed copy of Camilla Trinchieri’s

The Price of Silence

I suppose it was a couple of contributing pieces to the storyline that immediately

grabbed my attention—the story is set in New York City; its protagonist teaches ESL

to English language learners from China. Hmm… I live in NYC and I’m currently

volunteering as an English conversation partner to a few Chinese English language

learners in Manhattan. How could I say no to Trinchieri’s book? Needless to say,

Because of the Cats

was promptly shelved in my personal library for later readerly

usage.

***

When scarred mother, wife and teacher Emma Perotti meets a young, intriguing

Chinese painter in her ESL classroom, the wall she built to shelter her self-willed

despair after the tragic death of her infant daughter begins to crumble.

Unbeknownst to the two women, An-ling Huang’s presence in Emma’s life begins to

(silently) act as a fleshy sledgehammer knocking at Emma’s self-protective wall,

behind which Emma’s desire to nurture and love another person is hidden. As Emma

becomes closer to An-ling Huang, long withheld tendencies toward expressing

affection are liberated. Emma’s husband responds to her opening up with

resentfulness. He becomes increasingly generous with expressing his native distrust

and dislike of the young Chinese immigrant who has captured his wife’s attention.

Their son Josh notices the change An-ling has brought to his mother; he wants to

know more about her. But before things get too deep, An-ling winds up dead in her

apartment and Emma is charged with her murder.

All great mysteries require a dead body. “I’ve gotta have a dead body,” one of my

friends tells me as she describes the types of books she likes to read. Well,

The

Price of Silence

has got the dead body. It’s a mystery sure enough. But for me, the

most fascinating part of any novel is always character. I’m less inclined to devour a

book for its plot. It’s character for which I’m hungry. Trinchieri’s

Price of Silence

then

came as a surprise—a literary crime novel. I was expecting more plot, less character

and was truly rewarded by an imbalance in favor of character. So for all you page-

turning plot lovers, I will tell you, you won’t be dying to get to the end of this novel to

know,

ho did it! Yes, you’ll want to know that part, but that desire will not so much

drive your reading as simply take a backseat to your desire to get to know this

handful of characters and what drives them.

For me, I found Emma’s “price of silence” too great. Her self-instructed penance is a

penance of worthy basis (for the death of her infant daughter), yet of unsound real-

life application as to its consequences to others, particularly her son. She loves him

from a distance, in the safety of silence.

Emma’s conflict with her birth-determined Catholicism walks a taut line of disbelief,

guilt and desire to believe. Desiring the comfort derived from a God-as-friend

relationship present in her grandmother, Emma says on page 126:

The next morning I took the train to Grand Central Station and walked the

eleven blocks to the best of God’s New York mansions—St. Patrick’s

Cathedral, my grandmother’s favorite. I knelt in the front pew and listened to

the silence, waited for the comfort of belief to envelop me like the blanket

Nonna used to fold over me when we went to sleep at night.

And desiring a belief in God as witnessed in her grandmother, Emma continues on

page 127:

It was the serene, stilled expression on Nonna’s face as she prayed that

mesmerized me, that made me want to believe as she did. […] She led me to

believe that my submission to God would bring not happiness, because that

was not our lot in life, but a sense of security, a feeling of being loved back

[…].

Coming to a realization of the true price of her penance (of silence—love at a silent

distance), Emma says on page 130:

Guilt had made me so self-absorbed I never stopped to think what I was doing

to my son, how I was depriving him of what was his right.

When I read this sentence I immediately thought of a fictional Rebbe and son

relationship in which a “price of silence” was paid. In Chaim Potok’s The Chosen, I

have always wondered about the Rebbe’s perspective—his heart’s perspective, not

his disciplined self’s exterior projection, on raising his eldest son in silence. I read

this book when I was twelve and was deeply affected, as much as my twelve-year-old

self could be, by the theme of silence. It was later, in the writings of Martin Luther

King, Jr., that I discovered a meaningful description of the “price of silence”:

We will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.

Trinchieri’s

Price of Silence

is a literary crime novel that will not let you down. I

realize some people are turned off by the term “literary.” In this case, I urge those

turned off by the term to keep in mind that this term simply refers a novel’s original

and interesting use of language. “Literary” also refers to the novel’s mirroring of the

human condition through vivid explorations of characters’ minds. If the term is used

for snobbish effect in the real world, I believe the term itself has been misused.

Trinchieri’s book is certainly character-driven, yet the plotting competes with any

regular plot-driven genre novel. It’s a must read.

From

Three Lanterns: A Journal

Camilla Trinchieri