Lies of Silence

Linda Perry is a senior policy analyst at the Ontario Ministry of
Colleges and Universities.

This is another masterfully written Moore book, presenting a complex
moral dilemma involving an Irishman who finds himself ensnared in a
terrorist plot. An accomplished, award-winning writer, Moore has
succeeded again in creating credible characters, although in this story
no one, not even the protagonist, is particularly engaging. The hero
fails to achieve either hero or antihero status through his limp
vacillation. His wife, when pushed to the limit by her experience with
gun-wielding bombers, is merely bitchy. Even his girlfriend is not fully
realized (unusual for Moore, who generally portrays females with such
profound insight that I long suspected him to be a modern-day George
Sand). In The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne and Message from Limbo,
his female characters are so deft that they seem photographic in their
depiction.

Compared with his earlier work, I found this story bleak and
passionless. Moore writes of his work: “My unconscious method is to
find the moment of crisis.” In this work, the moment is a suspenseful,
if long-drawn, anguished groan.