简介:The magnificent new nation-wide best-seller by the author of "The Devil's Advocate." "It was noon on a sunlit August day in the Italian village of San Stefano...a Madonna-faced young woman got out of a taxi, crossed to the mayor's house, rang the bell, and when he appeared in his doorway, she shot and killed him..." "Like 'The Devil's Advocate', his earlier and immensely successful book, 'Daughter of Silence' ranges against each other the forces of good and evil...Morris West is more than a fine teller of tales...he deserves our deep gratitutde as well as our praise." - Virgilia Peterson
A young woman kills a man to avenge the death of her mother sixteen years ago during the war, and her case provides a lawyer with a weapon in his conflict with his wife and father-in-law. The most compelling components of the story are the mystery associated with the wartime events and the drama of the trial. Once these are resolved, the book loses its way completely; the continual psychological analysis of the main characters by one another is both implausible and shallow. Despite their more realistic presentation, none of West's characters are as "real" as Sciascia's, and though great things are claimed for them, none of them attain the heroic status of Sciascia's Deputy or "little judge". While the philosophical and legal issues raised in Daughter of Silence (free will versus determinism) are big ones, their treatment is cursory, and the result is not nearly as satisfying as that of Sciascia's much briefer final story.
Leonardo Sciascia has been added to my list of authors to look out for, and connoisseurs of quality detective fiction should definitely check him out. I am not likely to read more Morris West unless I get stuck in an airport without better options, though perhaps I would have been more impressed with Daughter of Silence if I hadn't read it immediately after The Knight and Death.
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