Silent Is The Forest

In 1940, something terrible happened to Jo Wheeler during the Bristol Blitz - so terrible she can't stop blaming herself. Since then she has almost given up on making a fresh start, seeking oblivion in beer and one-night stands. Now, pregnant Jo has suffered another loss - her best friend Sarah Smith has died in a mysterious car crash in the Forest of Dean. Sarah was a volunteer firewatcher, like her. Together they climbed the tower of Gloucester Cathedral every night to look for enemy bombers, ready to extinguish incendiaries that might set fire to the roof. Sarah's husband Bruno knows that a threatening message written in pig's blood was left on her car shortly before she died. He's desperate. Since he can't persuade the hard-pressed police that Sarah has been murdered, he must turn to the disenchanted Jo instead. But Jo is more concerned with an odd little boy's daily visits to the cathedral to light prayer candles. His name is Sam. When he draws her a picture of a fearsome creature he has seen in the Forest, she is greatly alarmed. No such animal has existed in England for hundreds of years. It resembles a wild boar. Little does Jo expect to meet Sam again - at Sarah's funeral. Still less does she realise that it will be Sam who points her in the direction of a notorious war profiteer called James Boreman. As she gets closer to the truth, she uncovers a deadly web of domestic tyranny, wartime slave labour and murder that all lead back to Sarah. There is more to her car crash than meets the eye. Did Sarah die because she knew too much about bodies down a mine or because she was trying to save someone from an abusive marriage? Jo decides to ride to the Forest with cathedral verger John Curtis on her beloved motorcycle combination to investigate. It might give her life some purpose again. All she needs to do is learn how to forgive herself first...