Not A Sound by Heather Gudenkauf

Not A Sound is the sixth novel by Heather Gudenkauf. It's the fourth novel by Gudenkauf that I've read and reviewed here on the blog. Go here to find those reviews.

Two years after a hit and run driver left Amelia deaf and another woman dead, Amelia, a former trauma nurse and sexual assault nurse examiner, is still picking up the pieces of her life. Still adjusting to being deaf and struggling with staying sober, Amelia is rebuilding her life after her depression and alcoholism caused her to lose her job, her husband, and her young stepdaughter. Then Amelia discovers the partially nude body of another nurse, who was also a sexual assault nurse examiner and a former friend, in the nearby river on a morning paddle board excursion. As Amelia's drawn into the homicide investigation, her life is upended and endangered as it never has been before.

When Amelia finally lands a part-time job data processing for the local cancer treatment center, she discovers mysterious gaps of information and missing testing data in some of the files she's tasked with digitizing. And just as David, her estranged husband, shows renewed interest in her, circumstantial evidence surfaces linking him to Gwen's murder as well as another patient's death. Is David's renewed interest genuine or meant to manipulate a false sense of security in Amelia as the man she used to love orchestrates the destruction of her credibility and her life?

Luckily Amelia's childhood friend, Jake, is the detective who has caught Gwen's murder. Though Amelia initially (foolhardily) holds back information, she eventually realizes she must confide everything she's gleaned to the one person she knows she can still trust: Jake. But has she waited too long? Does Gwen's murder connect to Amelia's accident? How does the murder connect to the incomplete files at the cancer treatment center? Is any of this connected to Amelia's and Gwen's work as sexual assault nurse examiners? How is David connected to all of this? And if he has no involvement in these unsolved crimes, then who committed them?

This is a heart pounding, page turning, disturbing thriller with a diabolically cold, cruel, and greedy perpetrator. However, there were several story threads that didn't go anywhere. One particular thread was the story of Jake's wife Sadie's suicide; it was emphasized to the point that it made me think that there was perhaps more to that subplot; however, it never developed into anything. Another thread that was under-utilized was Amelia's and Gwen's work as sexual assault nurse examiners; while it's broached that this may be the connection between Amelia, Gwen, and Amelia's accident, this thread is quickly dropped.

There must have been a lot of shady stuff/people in this novel because the first thing in my notes for this book is a list of shadiness.

First, there's David. 1. David kicks Amelia out of their house barely half a year after her accident when it becomes clear that she's not just going to bounce back from losing her hearing. 2. There are at least two encounters with her estranged husband in which the man grabs and squeezes Amelia's face and then spews verbal abuse in her face. 3. Amelia has a point when she says David 'threw her away because she wasn't perfect anymore.' 4. The man is no prize, and Amelia is well rid of him.

Second, there's Amelia's new boss and whatever shadiness is going on with the missing documents from the patient files. And while this is never directly addressed in the novel, the reader can put two and two together to figure out that the villain impersonated other people and misrepresented himself over the phone to Amelia because he knew that she was reading a text display on the other end of the line and couldn't hear the voice of the person calling.

Third, there's squirrely P. McNaughton. Such squirreliness. Much shadiness. And it all turns out to be a red herring!

--Reviewed by Ms. Angie

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