by Frank Zafiro and Colin Conway, 2024
The Silence of the Dead came across my Facebook feed about 6 weeks ago, as I recently became a member of my local writer’s guild. I saw that a Spokane-based writer had a new book release—a crime novel centering on possible corruption in the Spokane Police Department (SPD), spanning decades of time. Intriguing! As I’m always looking to learn about the city I’ve just moved to, that was all the hook I needed. Because I was new to the area, I had no idea that Colin Conway had more than 30 novels under his belt, used to be with the SPD himself, and I was in for the ride of my life.
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It’s 2023, and a police investigator named Wardell Clint is assigned to solving cold cases. He believes he’s on to something with three cases dating back to the 1950s, 1970s, and mid-2000s—he finds commonalities among these three cases, and he’s paying retired Detective Robert Baumgartner a visit to discuss them.
In the early 1950s, two young, naïve women go missing from a college campus, apparently seduced by a charming older man who also happens to be a medical doctor in the Spokane area. Police veteran George Amherst and rookie Walter Pierce conduct a frantic search for the women, but they arrive too late—they discover the women, already dead, and the doctor has escaped. Within a month, the city has forgotten about the incident and everyone has moved on.
It’s 1974. Veteran Detective Walter Pierce, who has been in the SPD now for 28 years, has just been assigned his new partner, Augustus Salter. It’s the year the World’s Fair and Expo was being held in Spokane and there was a massive hiring of new police officers to provide security for the event. But one of the new hires, this greenhorn, is a friend of a friend, and Pierce agrees to take him under his wing. As Pierce realizes Salter hasn’t even finished his police academy training yet, he regrets his decision.
For these two detectives, male bodies start piling up. One drowning, one lover’s quarrel that ends up as a murder, and an apparent suicide, all with similar injuries. All begin to have connections with a well-known homosexual pickup bar near downtown Spokane. With Expo going on, the department wants these cases wrapped up and covered up as quickly and quietly as possible so they won’t bring any unfavorable publicity to the city of Spokane.
It’s 2005. Augustus Salter is now Lieutenant Salter, head honcho of the SPD. He has just summoned Detectives Robert Baumgartner and his female partner, Dusty Maragas, to his office. They are handed a 2-year old murder case of a man that went unsolved by a previous detective before he retired. Another homosexual murder victim, as it turns out. They solve the murder, but justice is not served.
Back to 2023 and the interview between Lieutenant Robert Baumgartner, now retired, and Wardell Clint. Clint is determined to pick the brain of the one person still around who can answer questions and tie up loose ends regarding all three cases. Clint believes he’s found the one tenuous thread that connects these three cold cases, but he needs confirmation from Baumgartner. Will Robert let him pull on it?
The clever weaving of this tale is engaging and intriguing, and held my interest throughout. The author’s skillful aging of each detective, taking each from a naive and idealistic patrol officer to the senior detective in charge was realistic not only for the growth a person makes in such a job, but also the toll we see it takes on a person’s psyche. Because the book spans more than 70 years, we see growth and change not only in the police detectives, but in the serial killers themselves, who age and mature in unexpected ways.
I highly recommend The Silence of the Dead for its clever plot structure, outstanding character development, and moral dilemma Clint is presented at the end.
