Product Description

Once upon a time isn't all it is cracked up to be. Hilda Johansson, the sleuth in Jeanne M. Dams's turn-of-the-century novels, is the perfect observer and commentator; as a maid in the Studebaker household in South Bend, Indiana, Hilda sees what's going on among the rich, suffers what's going on among the less fortunate...and presents it all with an eye as keen as that of Jacob Riis.

Hilda's situation hasn't improved much, even though she's solved several murders: with her entire family of seven living in a small house, the happiness she expected to find when they were reunited is sorely lackingparticularly since her mother doesn't approve of Hilda's relationship with Irish Catholic Patrick Cavanaugh. Worse, her twelve-year-old brother Eric hates city life; he has been fired from a number of jobs and is increasingly restless under his overly protective mother's thumb. Then Eric's friend, who had run away to join the circus, is found beaten...and perhaps worse. The news is shocking; frightening is the idea that Eric might know more than he's saying.

Hilda Johansson has always been a mirror held up to her society and, by extension, to our own. In writing of her, Jeanne M. Dams continues to explore motives as relevant today as in the period she describes with such attention to detail, to period color, and to the human heart.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1625425 in Books
• Published on: 2004-09-17
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 226 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Swedish maid and sometime South Bend, Ind., sleuth Hilda Johansson has a personal stake in solving her latest mystery: her brother Erik is having trouble getting used to their adopted country, and he may be hiding a deadly secret. Tackling Protestant/Catholic conflicts, rich/poor dynamics and a criminal act that's in the headlines today, a century later, with equal alacrity, the Agatha Award-winning author of the Dorothy Martin series, Jeanne M. Dams, offers up another one of her mysteries with a social conscience in Silence Is Golden.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
(*Starred Review*) Here's the latest Hilda Johanson mystery, and it's a real corker. The time is 1903; the circus is in town (South Bend, Indiana); and Fritz, a friend of Hilda's younger brother, decides he wants to join up and become a trapeze artist. Then the real trapeze artists, the Stupendous Shaws, disappear. So does Fritz, who eventually turns up hiding in a barn, brutally beaten and claiming that he was abused. To make matters even more confusing, Hilda's brother, Erik, also vanishes. Can Hilda find her little brother? What happened to the Stupendous Shaws, and are they responsible for the goings-on in South Bend? In a genre with no shortage of amateur sleuths in period costume, Hilda is one of the most memorable: a maid in the household of the fabulously wealthy Studebaker family, a Swedish girl still relatively new to the U.S. (and still fumbling with her English), a totally unlikely detective. The secret to Dams' success is in the details: she plunks us firmly down in early-twentieth-century Indiana. We learn, without realizing we're being taught anything at all, about social customs, class divisions, even the day-to-day operations of a wealthy turn-of-the-century household. Great characters, fascinating history, compelling mystery: this series could go on forever. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

What a horrible book!
It's difficult to believe that the author of the wonderful Dorothy Martin mystery series is also the perpetrator of this terrible stinker. Stupid plot, stupid characters...yeccchhhhh!!!!!!

A Sorry Disappointment
Having read the Dorothy Martin series, I was fully prepared to enjoy this book, but I didn't - not at all. Hilda, the protagonist, is impossible to like and, therefore, care much about. She prides herself on her ability as a liar, and her personality is harsh and domineering. Her little brother's an incorrigible brat, making it difficult to maintain any sympathy for him and his plight. The storyline is contrived and confusing. The cast of characters, except for the Irish swain, don't ring true; and the evocation of the historical period is the only saving grace. Back to Dorothy Martin, a heroine it's possible to like!

A Sorry Disappointment
Having read the Dorothy Martin series, I was fully prepared to enjoy this book, but I didn't - not at all. Hilda, the protagonist, is impossible to like and, therefore, care much about. She prides herself on her ability as a liar, and her personality is harsh and domineering. Her little brother's an incorrigible brat, making it difficult to maintain any sympathy for him and his plight. The storyline is contrived and confusing. The cast of characters, except for the Irish swain, don't ring true; and the evocation of the historical period is the only saving grace. Back to Dorothy Martin, a heroine it's possible to like!