Deadly Silence opens with an introduction to the kidnappers, Tony and Evan, misfits par excellence, who have made a career within an international kidnapping ring of infants for resale. Often accompanied by photographs of possible candidates, they kidnap by special order, infants in a different city each time. The resale process requires that the adopting family live abroad for a period of six months, unknowingly hiding the child until he is sufficiently changed to escape detection. These very wealthy parents are always told to tell their friends that the mother is pregnant and they are going away for awhile. (This is an interesting concept, but I never figured out how they realistically passed off an obviously older infant as their own child.)

A kidnapping has occurred, the FBI is alerted, and Deadly Silence shoves us into the heart of the ring. Will Kellars of the law firm of Kellars and Kellars in Oklahoma City appears to be the mastermind. He employs Annissa Jamison, a Jamaican who provides the international connections to run the ring. He and Annnissa have been lovers for twenty years. Her "front" is a travel agency with no clients, having office space in the same building as the law firm. Through her family in Jamaica, she arranges the transport of each child, the payments and bank transfers etc. However Annisssa is tired, guilt ridden and scared; she wants out, but Will refuses to consider it.

Tall, engaging Nick Hunter, former starving attorney is hired by the firm. Quickly he learns how smartly he must toe the line. A friend asks his help for some pro bono work, which he must have authorized by senior partner Will Kellar. Instead of permitting Hunter to accept the high profile case, he instead assigns him to represent Senator Holt. The good Senator has about one million dollars of income not reflected on his tax returns over a three year period.

Kellar also assigns Angela Anderson, the firm's Public Relations expert to assist Hunter in helping with damage control for the Senator. Angela has worked for the firm for more than six years and clues Hunter in on Kellar's little idiosyncrasies... such as taping all outgoing and incoming telelphone calls and bugging all the offices and hallways. Angela is clearly working there because her mother is in an expensive nursing home with Alzheimer's disease.

Nick's honest and gentle naiveté and Angela's practical but cynical approach play well against each other in the start of their friendship and budding romance. But romance fans should be aware that this is primarily a suspense story with the main characters only tangentially involved in a romance.

Deadly Silence has a very complicated plot and the author keeps adding characters as it moves along. However, because the transition between scenes is often poor, the dialogue often serves as a narrative rather than an interaction between the many characters.

Readers may be familiar from John Grisham's The Firm with the plot of a corrupt law firm spying on their associates with Carribean connections, but this author attempts to address even more issues. The interesting intricacies of the plot may keep readers involved on an intellectual level, but the scenes change so quickly that, at times, it's hard to connect emotionally with the principal characters. And without that connection, even a well-written, well-constructed book like Deadly Silence becomes just an average read.

--Thea Davis