CODE OF SILENCE-SALLY WRIGHT

Always glad to read a good mystery, I was excited for this book. Unfortunately, I found myself a bit disappointed with the writing. The actual plot, the mystery of the book, was excellent. The way it was set up and how it read to the readers was where the problem came, in my opinion.
Grieving the recent loss of his wife, Ben Reese is not doing much of anything. When a good friend gently prods him into helping with a potentially dangerous mystery, Ben reluctantly jumps on the band wagon.
Set in the 1950’s, Ben and his friend Richard become entangled in something very big and very dangerous. Carl Walker has gone missing. He is an acquaintance of Bens. Ben and Carl’s neighbor, Beth search Carl’s house for clues and find that his house has been broken into and searched. They soon find that their houses as well have been broken into.
Carl is found dead and the cops want to rule it a suicide. Receiving a package from Carl before he died, Ben starts to uncover the truth. Before Carl was killed he sent clues to where he was hiding evidence on a man who, ten years earlier, killed a woman and made it look like a suicide. She found this man, Bill Weisberg, an American Army Officer and linguist, was giving information to the enemies of America. She took pictures of his exchange of information for money. Now, ten years later he is resurfacing again to try and get his hands on the pictures he was unable to get back then. These pictures are now in Ben’s possession. Weisberg will stop at nothing to get them. He is even willing to go as far as to kidnap, torture, and kill.
What I didn’t like was the beginning pages. They were full of characters the reader doesn’t know yet and I found myself confused with how much information they threw at you, without allowing us to get to know the characters. Sally Wright starts the story out with action, which is the murder part of the story, but due to not getting any explanation of the characters, or the significance of the murder, it was a bit disappointing.
My next criticism would be that I had to keep reminding myself that the time line was set in the 1950’s. I found that without the chapters actually giving me the dates, I would assume it was modern times by the way the characters were created. I know the mystery itself makes it obvious that it was set in the 40’s and 50’s, but in other stories I have read, I get the feel from the writing that I am in that time frame, and for some reason with this story I kept thinking it was modern day.
That all being said, I really think that the story was good. I enjoyed the plot line, and liked the characters once I got to know them. I felt the story was well planned and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys a good mystery.