Book Review – Such a Quiet Place by Megan Miranda – Breathtaking Suspense
Table of Contents
My Rating – 4 out of 5
Plot Summary – Such a Quiet Place
Another sterling find of 2021! Such a Quiet Place chills you and feels like a night spent alone in a rumored haunted house. You hear creaks and sounds when there are none and even the breeze rattles you! She plays around with human insecurities, vulnerabilities, and self-doubt in such a manner where you start questioning everyone and everything, friends become foes, and casual acquaintances even more distant. Told in the first person of Harper Nash, the story never lets you settle, you are always questioning the incidents around you – even when they seem to be cut and dried definite, the doubt never leaves you. Harper herself leads that opinion with her meekness and uncertain nature.
Hollow’s Edge is a self-contained residential locality built around a lake (Lake Hollow) and a college of the same name. Most residents are directly or indirectly employed by the college, and by virtue of being colleagues and neighbors, everybody knows one another. The peace and tranquility of such an idyllic neighborhood were shattered one morning 18 months ago when a local couple, Brandon and Fiona Truett are found murdered in their home. Harper’s roommate, Ruby Fletcher is convicted of the crime and sent away for 20 years. But 14 months later, her conviction is overturned and Ruby is released from prison. And then, she is back at Harper’s doorstep, as if she has just returned from a long holiday!
But Ruby proclaims her innocence and since the whole neighborhood had testified against her, including Harper, the level of unease at her sudden return, unsettles everyone. Though initially, everyone is wary and resentful, they decide to ignore her when she turns up at their Fourth of July party. But this is where it turns even murkier, if Ruby is really innocent, that means that the real murderer still lives among them and is a threat to everybody else. Being a resident, he or she is a part of the inner circle, and moves along with everybody else, having escaped detection all along. The doubts begin to surface, relations start fraying at the edges and mistrust grows among all the residents.
While trust is the basis of all relationships, such grave allegations and suspicions throw all trust into the wind and everybody becomes a suspect. Ms. Miranda weaves a masterful yarn, the conversational nature of the narrative shifts the dynamics of neighborhood equations dramatically. Till the very end, the murder of the Truett’s seems without motive – besides the flimsy one established at trial, which makes the menace of the situation even more threatening and real. Is there safety for the remaining residents or will the killer strike again? Or since Ruby has come back, is she seeking retribution from those who sent her to jail in the first place?
Conclusion – Book Review of Such a Quiet Place
Yes, there is an Agatha Christie vibe, a whodunit like no other, as she masterfully tiptoes around the murders and their investigation, all the while circling towards the whirlpool at the center of it all! Though there is a reveal at the end of it, it’s not a major earth-shattering one, only because you know that it has to be one amongst the few. The beauty is the process by which she arrives at it, this is no cop or PI going through police procedurals or criminal investigations, it is dogged, an amateurish and persistent investigation by one critically affected character.
Such a Quiet Place is thus like a diary written by a resident, who just gets carried along by the flow of incidents, picking up facts and inferences along the way until the truth is arrived at. A must-read, people! From start to end, a fascinating and rapid page-turner. It’s the absorbing manner of the narrative that makes it such a breathtaking novel!
*I hope you have enjoyed reading this book review as much as I have enjoyed writing this! Do watch this space for more such reviews and navigate through the links below for more… Thank you!! *