The Silent Boy

Starred review from August 17, 2015
Edgar-finalist Taylor’s outstanding second historical featuring Edward Savill (after 2013’s The Scent of Death) opens in 1792 Paris, where a 10-year-old boy, Charles, flees a bloody scene—but can’t tell anyone what he has witnessed, because someone ordered him to stay silent. Meanwhile in London, Savill, who’s acting as the agent for some wealthy Americans, learns that his estranged wife, Augusta, with whom he’s had no contact for five years, has been killed in Paris by a band of sansculottes who suspected she was a spy. Complications arise when he learns that Augusta had a son, Charles, who has been brought to Charnwood Court, an English country house. Having no reason to believe he’s the boy’s father, Savill wants nothing to do with Charles, but Augusta’s uncle persuades him to bring the child from Charnwood to London. The suspenseful, heart-breaking sections from Charles’s perspective evoke the spirit of Charles Dickens. Agent: Vivien Green, Sheil Land Associates (U.K.).