"She wished she could help, but all she could do was listen to the echoes of other people's pain nobody else heard. Her ability gave her a window into other lives - a gift but also a curse. She carried their voices, their stories, in her mind".
The Secret Voices by M.J. White is a compelling psychological thriller/police procedural with an unforgettable, unique protagonist who will make you wonder how astonishing the human mind can be.
It's a market day in a small Suffolk village of St Just. Eight-year-old Hannah Perry is on her way home from school on the last day of term before the Easter holidays. She tells her friend and her mother that she is meeting her own Mum at the market. Hannah is reluctant to go home, as she knows there's only her mother's boyfriend Shaun waiting for her, while her mother is working.
She pauses to look at the window of the local estate agents, daydreaming about living in one of the nice houses, with her dreamed-up dog Amber. The market is in full swing, and Hannah glimpses yellow balloons being offered to children. Maybe she could get one for her little sisters, Lily and Ruby.
Hannah never makes it home.
The community and the police is shaken. There are just too many similarities to the disappearance of another child seven years earlier. A young boy named Matthew Cooper went missing, never to be seen alive again.
"The monster responsible was never caught and for years St Just cowered in the shadow of the knowledge that the murderer was still out there. It had carved a deep scar on the community that never fully healed".
Acting DS Rob Minshull is leading the investigation. He is completely out of depth in this case. Substantial police and volunteer search efforts prove fruitless, and with each passing hour the fears are growing for Hannah.
The journalist sharks are having a field day, accusing police of incompetence, "With no new developments and an embattled police investigation remaining tight-lipped, tonight the question is being asked here, as in the wider nation: Is Hannah Perry still alive?"
The investigation is full of dead ends. The kidnapper sends sinister packages to the police, which contain Hannah's belongings and cryptic messages. It is obvious, Hannah's life is endangered.
And then Dr Cora Lael is invited to help with the investigation. She is a psychologist of unique talents. She works for the neurological research project, and it was discovered that "the areas of Cora's brain linked to emotion and memory fired when she heard a voice from an object and came to the conclusion that the cognitive pathways were somehow linked together. Where a person with synaesthesia could perceive letters and numbers as colours, or experience words as taste, Cora could sense emotional echoes attached to objects, as real as if the emotions were her own".
Cora's life is not an easy one. She has to learn to live with her gift, or curse, depending on how you look at it. Most of the time she is control, convincing herself, "It's just a sound. It can't hurt me. The voices are just echoes of the past".
When Cora is shown the first of Hannah's belongings, she hears the young girl's scream.
As the leads are scarce, the police team rely on Cora's ability to find the clues to Hannah's whereabouts. At first, Minshull is unnerved and suspicious. "He'd expected a quasi-spiritual charlatan, a snake oil pedlar. Cora Lael was none of those things. There was fire in her - carefully guarded but ready to spark to her aid..."
The time is running out for Hannah. Will the police be able to find her before the tragedy strikes again?
The Secret Voices is perfect for readers who like their thrillers with an unusual twist. A true page-turner, with an intriguing premise.
The story is told from several different perspectives, including Hannah's voice, which shows a vulnerable yet spirited child.
The abductor's motivation revealed at the end didn't convince me as credible. I still think this is a promising series, and I will definitely read the next book when it's out.
This rollercoaster of twists will have you on the edge of your seat throughout. M.J. White manages the tension expertly.
It will make an excellent Netflix series, along the lines of Bordertown and The Sniffer, where the main protagonists have special talents that help them investigate crimes.
This post is part of the blog tour for The Secret Voices.
Many thanks to M.J. White and Rachel's Random Resources for my e-copy of the book!
Purchase Links
Kobo: https://bit.ly/3fxbUia
Apple: https://apple.co/3IwAZGz
Author Bio – MJ White is the crime pen name of the internationally bestselling author Miranda Dickinson. To date she has sold over one million books worldwide and has been translated into sixteen languages. Miranda has always been a huge fan of crime fiction and The Secret Voices marks the start of a new and exciting departure for her writing.
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