The very first thing I did after finishing The Great Silence was visit Doug Johnstone’s website to check (and breathe a sigh of relief) that there will be a Skelfs book four. The ending to this one could well have been a perfect wrap to a brilliantly plotted trilogy. Thankfully the most recent post on his blog shows that he completed the first draft of book four in November, making The Great Silence  another perfect instalment in my favourite crime series.

 

In The Great Silence funeral directors/ private investigator family the Skelfs are still dealing with the fallout from book two in the series. But, there are plenty more cases on their plate, from the Beast of Bruntsfield to a missing girl.

 

There’s a lot of plot in here. Cases which overlap and interlink with personal challenges and different perspectives from the three generations of Skelf women. But, it’s all handled masterfully, interweaving and coming together in a way that never feels forced. The cases range from the deadly serious to the seemingly ridiculous (are aliens pranking a research student). 

 

While there’s a lot of dark humour in moments of the story there’s also a real respect for individual human experiences. No character is two dimensional, even those who commit objectively abhorrent acts, are still shown as complex humans who can have had a positive role for someone as a spouse, a parent, sibling or a child. All this adds to the depth of the story and the enjoyment as a reader. I look forward to many more Skelfs books in the future.