Nessa Crowley’s murderer has been protected by silence for ten years.
Until a team of documentary makers decide to find out the truth.
On the day of Henry and Keelin Kinsella’s wild party at their big house a violent storm engulfed the island of Inisrun, cutting it off from the mainland. When morning broke Nessa Crowley’s lifeless body lay in the garden, her last breath silenced by the music and the thunder.
The killer couldn’t have escaped Inisrun, but no-one was charged with the murder. The mystery that surrounded the death of Nessa remained hidden. But the islanders knew who to blame for the crime that changed them forever.
Ten years later a documentary crew arrives, there to lift the lid off the Kinsella’s carefully constructed lives, determined to find evidence that will prove Henry’s guilt and Keelin’s complicity in the murder of beautiful Nessa.
In this bold, brilliant, disturbing new novel Louise O’Neill shows that deadly secrets are devastating to those who hold them close.
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Reviews
This superior psychological thriller...absolutely gripping, intriguing and superbly written...a compulsive read - Liz Nugent
Imagine Emily Bronte crossed with a Netflix true-crime documentary and with a dash of Big Little Lies thrown in. After the Silence is gripping, clever and beautifully written. O'Neill has a gimlet eye for the telling detail ...Chillingly good - Elizabeth Day
Elegant, assured, gripping and moving, it's her best book to date and that's really saying something
This is good. Really good. Dark and tragic and anger-inducing. Succession meets West Cork with a fire of feminist fury.
Chilling and atmospheric, After the Silence is sharp and perceptively written, with a mystery at its heart that will keep you gripped. I think this is Louise's best book yet.
A gripping new direction for Louise O'Neill but still with her distinctive powerful voice. I raced through it, guessing until the very - satisfying - end.
Devastating, chilling and enviably accomplished... I haven't been so gripped by a book in years
A powerfully atmospheric, darkly compelling mystery characterised by Louise O'Neill's exquisite writing and powerful psychological insight. Seriously good.
Louise O'Neill has done it again. . .her writing captivates me in a visceral way every time. After The Silence does what Louise does best: addictive and scalpel-sharp fiction that addresses important topics that should demand our attention, while feeling both deep discomfort and fire in our belly.
Louise O'Neill's After the Silence is a devastatingly beautiful book full of secrets, mystery and a story so powerful and enthralling you cannot look away. An absolute masterpiece and one of my favourite books in the world!
A clever, sleight of hand psychological thriller set on the small Irish island of Inisrun
dark, haunting, almost claustrophobic read, but the writing is still both beautiful and lyrical
You'll be absorbed by this chilling tale of controlling and toxic relationships
A subtle slow-burn, this evocative mystery spins into an intricate portrait of gas-lighting and sacrifice
Dark, windswept, suspenseful and kept me on the edge of my seat. Bravo to a wonderful writer and wonderful woman
This multi-layered, sinister chiller is a real page-turner.
The plot is intricate and intelligent, but the drama gets its real energy from the author's obvious anger about what men get away with, and why some women always pay the price.
O'Neill has made her name as one of Ireland's foremost feminist writers, and this is a detailed examination of a toxic marriage as well as an absorbing mystery
This is O'Neill at her best: splintered portraits of relationships so sharp you could cut yourself on them, deeply empathetic characterisation and a vivid exposure of the brutality of all forms of domestic abuse, including the ones that so often remain hidden in the shadows. A tour de force from a spectacular storyteller, it will have you gripped from the first page to the last, but it will stay with you long after that as well. O'Neill is one of our finest feminist writers and this is her best book yet.
With impeccable research into domestic violence on women, O'Neill conjures a disturbing and uncomfortable atmosphere, made darker by the remote island where the story is set
This compulsive novel tells a claustrophobic tale of violence, control and domestic abuse.
The atmosphere of it is dream-like and it's completely compelling