Author:  M.L. Malcolm

Publisher:  Longstreet Press, Inc.

ISBN:  1-56352-750-2

The following review was contributed by:    Jennifer Brown & Click Here To View Jennifer Brown's Reviews

By all accounts, Leo Hoffman should have been a beggar.  Born into poverty, he had but one salvation – his amazing talent with learning languages – a talent that was both his rescue and his defeat.

M.L. Malcolm’s fascinating novel, SILENT LIES, tells the story of Leo Hoffman, a Hungarian boy who gets the chance to transform his existence from that of a poor boy to a life filled with riches and love.  But, after the collapse of Hungary following World War I, Leo’s rich world is turned upside down.

Just hours after meeting the love of his life, Leo is forced to kill a man and escape to Shanghai, bringing with him a stolen diamond necklace.  Using the necklace to reinvent himself, after months, Leo is able to send for his bride and build a family.

For a while it seems as if life for the Hoffmans is charmed.  They are rich and powerful in Shanghai, living in the anonymous world of the mysterious city.  With the exception of the fact that Leo is unable to leave Shanghai, keeping his wife cut off from her family, it almost seems as if the things Leo did to get to this point is simply a dream or memory from long ago. 

But as a new World War approaches, several turns of events spin Leo’s life out of control.  Unable to confide in his wife the truth about his past and the despicable things he’s doing in the present, Leo feels tortured inside, trapped by a lifetime of circumstances beyond his control.  And when the approaching war ends up on Shanghai’s doorstep, Leo loses everything important to him.

SILENT LIES is a remarkable blend of history and fiction.  Malcolm’s ability to transplant the reader into a world of post-World War I confusion and pre-World War II fear and the false security in between, carries the reader right along with Leo to places far away, making the foreign somehow familiar.

The novel’s only flaw is Malcolm’s decision to introduce what turns out to be an integral character to the story on page 247, which feels to the reader a little too late to be meeting her for the first time.  Perhaps Chapter 15 marks a place where a sequel to SILENT LIES should have begun, as everything after page 247 seems so much different from Leo’s story, and Malcolm’s ability to continue the story beyond where it ultimately ends is unquestionable.

While the book has so many qualities to interest a reader – history, language, immersion into foreign culture, action, intrigue – it is first and foremost about the romance between Leo and his wife.  Malcolm’s most beautiful prose occurs when the two are alone.

“‘By god, you’re worth a revolution,’” he whispered in the air above her ear.  She did not catch his words, but heard the love with which he uttered them, and turning slightly to face him, she smiled.” (p. 201)

A story too rich to be soaked up in only one sitting, SILENT LIES is a book meant to be read again and again.  Readers will be wondering about Leo and his family after turning the last page, eagerly awaiting the promised continuation of the story.