Tower Of Silence [Mass Market Paperback]

Mary Maskelyne, an infamous teenage murderess from the 1960s, now in her forties, is transferred to Moy, a remote Scottish institution for the criminally insane. Selina March, a colorless, proper spinster, short of money, converts her house to a bed and breakfast. Mystery writer Joanna Savile arrives in the village of Inchcape, near Moy, to do some research and specifically to interview Mary Maskelyne. The stage is now set for events that began with a shattering atrocity in the tumultuous India of the late 1940s to play out to their final conclusion.

Sarah Rayne is supposed to be a pseudonym for a writer who is already well-known in Britain for horror fiction. Remnants of this may be seen in some of the particularly gruesome events that take place in _Tower of Silence_, but they don't seem to be out of place or done just for shock value. I, for one, am glad that she decided to switch genres; her other novels may be well written but I probably would not have found them, and I would imagine that psychological suspense gives her much more scope for her talents. Her writing is superb and even poetic at times. Her characters, even the worst of them, are imagined from the inside, and vividly drawn. The portrayal of Mary Maskelyne, manipulative, narcissistic and attention-seeking, is one of the most chilling fictional examinations of the sociopathic mind that I have ever encountered. Other, more sympathetic characters include Emily Frost, the colorful and many-faceted daughter of one of the doctors at Moy, who volunteers to work with some of the patients; the sad, traumatized and extremely dangerous patient known as Pippa; and the attractive, strangely charismatic Joanna.

Unfortunately, for the most part Rayne does not seem to portray male characters nearly as vividly or sympathetically, although I did like Joanna's husband, the half-Hungarian Krzystof Kent. Also, she may push coincidence a bit too far for some people in bringing all of these people together in the same place, but if you're like me you will be too caught up in the plot and the characters' lives to care.

Tower Of Silence kicks off by introducing us to Selina March, a timid spinster who leads a sheltered, if not reclusive, life. Horrified by the prospect of Teind House, her home for the last four decades,having to be sold due to lack of money, Selina reluctantly decides to open a bed and breakfast. Crime writer Joanna Savile comes to stay while doing research for her latest novel. Teind House is close to Moy, an asylum for the criminally insane. Housed there is Mary Maskelyne,a notorious Sixties murderess.

I won't give too much away but a dark, devastating secret links the women. A tragedy that occurred in India nearly fifty years ago continues to impact the lives of many. Admittedly, the climax stretches credibility a tiny bit but you'll be too engrossed to care by then.

As well as being gripping and chilling, it shows the ripple effect a tragedy can have. If you've never read Sarah Rayne before, start now!

Tried to read J Sheridan Le Fanu's THE WYVERN MYSTERY while an elderly relative who is in rehab slept for periods during my visits, but hospital wards are noisy, busy places, I'm not one who can really concentrate on reading when surrounded by distractions, and the French-Irish writer didn't exactly pen simple to follow, one comma sentences (& WYVERN, btw, wasn't one of his better works). Had to find something easy to read, but also entertaining to while away the hours and just happened to notice Sarah Rayne's TOWER OF SILENCE; the synopsis on the back cover of the paperback sounded interesting so I decided to give it a shot and, for the first 450 or so of the novel's 491 pages, I was quite happy with my purchase ... 'til the ending ...

As the plot is, as I noted, provided on the back cover and has also been elaborated in Amazon's Book Description and by some of my fellow reviewers, I needn't go into it, except to say that the many coincidences in this story require the usual suspension of disbelief as regards this type of thriller/mystery/crime story, but the last coincidence, which is revealed ten pages from the end*, is just one too many. Furthermore, as another reviewer implied, a logically expected meeting that the author has seemed to build up to betw either of two main characters and a minor one** is denied us and, instead, we are given the rather unsatisfying - and illogical*** - demise of one of the central characters. The gathering of the "white hats" at the end of the story to provide the pretext for exposition is also disappointing since, while it's nice to have "loose threads tied up", one doesn't need to read what happens to/became of minor characters after the climax and since one wd have figured that a writer of Rayne's imagination and skill cd have penned a less cliched conclusion. And, while we're at it, why does a protag mistake a minor character for another at the end even though they've already met and, indeed, interacted for quite some time?****

SPOILER ALERT
* that crime writer Joanna Savile is Ingrid's much younger sister
** aside from irony, why did Rayne include the "Pippa" character in the book and reveal her to be the supposedly deceased Christabel Maskelyne IF she didn't intend for her to meet her sister, Mary, or reunite with childhood friend Selina March?
*** Selina, who was petrified of the top of Alwar's Tower of Silence - as well as Inchcape's Round Tower - becuz the "ogre birds" were up there, nonetheless climbs to the summit at the climax as if that wasn't the case
**** Mary mistakes Joanna for her former lover Ingrid despite having spoken at length with the writer earlier in the story
SPOILER FINIS

This is all too bad becuz Mayne's omniscient 3rd person narration does a good job of drawing the reader in with the stories and perspectives of several interesting characters, with very revealing and not at all confusing "flashbacks" into the histories of two protags, with nice characterization that demonstrates the author's fine grasp of human psychology, with Gothic features (e.g. remote settings, horrific secrets, ancient buildings/ruins, a disfigured character, a strange ritual, a dungeon, etc), and, 'til the unfortunate last 50 pages or so, with excellent plotting. And, it is this that makes TOWER OF SILENCE, in the end, such a disappointment - for me, anyway.

Nonetheless, I believe that many others may not find the aforementioned plot points so problemmatic and it wdn't surprise me if they found this a very good cover-to-cover read.

Word of warning 'tho: some of the violence depicted in TOWER is quite graphic and if one has a fear of birds - esp large ones - this is def not the book for you. Enjoy