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AnneP

You won't want to put this book down

Reviewed in Australia on 24 October 2019

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

This is a great book. The descriptions have you in the moment throughout the book. I could taste the fish and chips in the scene at the fish and chip shop! I hope there's another book coming. I have told many people to read Scrublands and now to add Silver to their must read list.

4 people found this helpful

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He’s done it again

Reviewed in Australia on 26 November 2019

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

Fans of Scrublands will like this one too. It has an intricate plot involving murders, a bit of drug use and the greed of competing developers in a seaside town. As with Scrublands, the place is well-evoked. You really get the feel of an Aussie coastal town that has its rich people on Nob Hill, its backpacker hostel, its poor white trash and its Aboriginal families who’ve put in a land claim. Then there’s the sea and surfing, the coastal scrubland and the patches of rainforest, the thunderheads rolling in from the south as a southerly buster brings lightning and rain.

Journalist Martin Scarsden is looking forward to settling down in his old home town with his new girlfriend Mandy and her baby son Liam when it all goes pear-shaped. As a journo Martin walks a fine line between helping the police and annoying them. Mandy is a suspect and although Martin is dedicated to clearing her name their relationship is new enough that there’s room for unease on both sides. There’s a rich cast of characters who are very well developed but it’s done so deftly you don’t get them muddled. In between figuring out the various whodunnits Martin faces old demons - the ones he couldn’t wait to get away from when he was eighteen. Very satisfying story telling. Done well, it would be a sizzler of a movie, especially as it has touches of the exotic: a Cretan saint and an Indian swami who leads meditation retreats both feature. Plus Martin has a useful friend at ASIO. As a journo himself Hammer does a great job with the media part of the story.

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Vivienne May Beddoe

Stunning second novel.

Reviewed in Australia on 16 December 2019

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

A thoroughly engrossing read. Chris Hammer takes his protagonist from Scrublands back to his home town on the North Coast straight into a vicious murder where his girlfriend is the main suspect.
Moving from the current sleuthing to the past Martin's troubled background is gradually revealed.
The story also moves from the town's concerns - development , drugs, the role of the Indigenous population - to Martin's precarious personal relationships.
The tangled webs are resolved with the revelation of more than one betrayal as implied in the title.

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gary hampson

Hammer does it again

Reviewed in Australia on 24 October 2019

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

Silver is a rollicking good mystery that builds on Chris Hammer’s previous bestseller Scrublands. Moving to the coast and away from the bushfires, our hero Martin returns to the seaside town he grew up in. Slow to start, the pace of the novel picks up as the threads from the past and the property developers get involved. Hammer is at his best when plotting the media and journalists into the story. Thoroughly recommended for a summer read by the coast.

2 people found this helpful

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piper

Couldn’t put it down

Reviewed in Australia on 9 October 2019

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

This was a great read and really rubbed away at the surface of small town life, but also at the events that shape each of us and bring us full circle back to our roots. It had some great twists to the plot and unexpected ending. Interesting complex relationship also between the police and journalists. I read it in two sittings.

One person found this helpful

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Meredith Whitford

a very good read

Reviewed in Australia on 17 November 2019

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

I ha some trouble following the ins and outs of who was up to what with land developments and crimes and so on, but this was still an absorbing and interesting, very well-written book with well-drawn characters. The author has a real eye for the small things -- tics of behaviour; scenery; fish and chips by the sea, and so on. I hope Hammer continues and makes a series of this and Scrublands.

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Kept me interested and involved.

Reviewed in Australia on 18 December 2019

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

I usually don’t like stories about developers and what goes on behind the scenes. The skullduggery and deceptions all in the name of massive profits. I did like this book though. I’d read his first book so knew the main characters. That helped.

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Chris

Another great Australian story

Reviewed in Australia on 2 December 2019

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

For the past months I've been meaning to read this book but I've been too busy. Last week I decided I had to, and I'm not sorry. Just like Scrublands there are twists and turns but not manufactured Ines. It Al seems so real and it's compelling. A must read. And when is the next one out Chris!

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Top international reviews

Graham G Grant

‘There are things you can’t escape’

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 12 December 2019

Verified Purchase

After completing his book about the bloodshed in Scrublands, the first book in this series, journalist Martin Scarsden travels to his home town of Port Silver to be reunited with Mandalay Blonde and her son. They’ve moved there for respite after the trauma of Scrublands. But their lives are turned upside down again after Jason Speight, Scarsden’s childhood friend, is discovered stabbed to death in Mandalay’s townhouse. She is a suspect and Scarsden must clear her name. He becomes drawn into the secret life of the coastal town: bitter rivalries, property disputes, police corruption... It’s elaborately plotted and richly textured - we learn about Scarsden’s troubled upbringing largely in flashback. It’s a more conventional work of crime fiction than Scrublands, which was a whydunnit, with a novel premise. Scarsden is no longer a full-time journalist, which is a shame - the depiction of reporters in the first novel was unusually accurate for a work of fiction (Hammer was a journalist). It’s a very ‘busy’ novel - crowded with well-drawn characters - and I found the plot occasionally bordered on baffling: it’s labyrinthine. But a combination of the strong sense of place and Scarsden himself - haunted by his past (‘there are things you can’t escape’), a flawed hero - means the novel works, and the momentum increases in the second half (where, happily, there’s also a return to Scarsden’s old life as a newspaper journalist). Not as strong or as compelling as Scrublands, but a very worthy follow-up.

5 people found this helpful

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Graham of Watton

Exceptional

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 29 December 2019

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'Silver' is the follow-up to 'Scrublands', Chris Hammer's debut novel in which the main character is investigative journalist Martin Scarsden. I thoroughly enjoyed 'Scrublands', and 'Silver' is every bit as good, with Hammer continuing the story of Scarsden's personal redemption. This happens whilst he is investigating a complex chain of events which include the murder of a childhood friend, shady land deals, a charismatic guru and drugs taken both knowingly and unwittingly. The story is set in the town of Port Silver, where Scarsden's girlfriend Mandy has inherited a property, and is also the place where he spent the early years of his life but had never previously returned, and where he has left many unhappy memories.
I think Mr Hammer is an exceptional writer and very much look forward to reading his next book, whether or not it centres around Martin Scarsden.

4 people found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

Stunning

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 20 October 2019

Verified Purchase

After reading Scrublands I was extremely keen to read the next book in the series. I have just finished this terrific addition to the series & I was not disappointed. As with Scrublands, Silver continues the tale of Martin Scarsden & Mandalay (love the name) Blonde. An absolutely beautiful story, twists aplenty. I will definitely be buying the next book from this terrific Australian author, no matter what it's about. I urge any fan of crime fiction to read this (& Scrublands.... Of course) A. S. A. P.

3 people found this helpful

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Antenna

A twist too many in the swamps and potions of greed, guilt and revenge?

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 1 February 2020

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Having immersed himself in a book on the complex crimes he helped to solve in the outback town of Riversend, covered in the freestanding bestseller “Scrublands”, hard-bitten former foreign correspondent Martin Scarsden returns after an absence of more than twenty years to his home town of Silver on the east coast of Australia, where his new partner has inherited a dilapidated house in one of the many coincidences on which the novel’s convoluted plot tends to rely.

Gradually, details emerge of the family tragedy which drove Martin to leave Silver at the earliest opportunity, although some missing pieces of the puzzle are not even revealed to him until the final pages. He barely sets foot in town before being diverted from reflecting on the past by the shocking discovery of the body of his close friend from childhood, Jaspar Speight, a local estate agent, found lying in the house Martin’s partner has been renting, making her a prime suspect. In his determination to prove her innocence, Martin becomes involved in the local conflict between speculators out to make money and the native people and visitors to a spiritual retreat wishing to be left free to enjoy the natural beauty of the surf-washed shore where kangaroos graze. In the mesh of sub-plots, there are also recurring themes of revenge and guilt.

As in “Scrublands”, author Chris Hammer is strong on sense of place: “the spotted gums and cabbage tree ferns, the palm trees and staghorns and the cedars trailing vines, bellbirds chiming” in the lingering summer of the subtropical north coast of New South Wales; “the tugging dryness of a drought-ravaged inland left the far side of the coastal plain” –all quite evocative in view of the recent devastating Australian wildfires. He also captures the ambience of a somewhat run-down town with the potential for development, but at the risk of destroying local communities and damaging the environment.

Although the style can be slick and corny at times, Hammer is good at developing Martin’s character to show his changing moods, with his understandable introspection, flashbacks of nostalgia for the past mixed with bitterness, but also his compulsive drive to “get a scoop” even at the cost of appearing ruthless and insensitive (“Seven people dead. And you’re smiling!”), pursuing sometimes dubious means without hesitation in order to achieve an end which is justified if the guilty are caught.

The author puts his long experience as a journalist to good use to show how reporters vie, even within a paper, to be the first get an article published, how they live with the constant fear that a story will turn out to be false, and the risk of losing the trust of colleagues on whom they rely, may even be fired, if they fail to reveal a juicy fact in an attempt to shield someone they love.

Despite moments of high drama, there is too much repetition of banal detail apart from the denouement which ironically seems overly abrupt. The numerous plot twists are often unconvincing or rather confused. The upshot is a novel that alternates oddly between being a page turner and a bit tedious. It did not grip me as much as “Scrublands” which I would recommend reading first (although on reflection this has the same strengths and flaws, so perhaps it was the novelty that hooked me), nor in quite the same league as Jane Harper’s novels also set in Australia.

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Avidreader

Disappointing

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 21 January 2020

Verified Purchase

I ploughed through this book, finding it very heavy going. His first book in this series was much better. There were so many cliches- stunningly beautiful woman with very quirky name is left a substantial inheritance, ace reporter who is fortuitously always on the scene of the murders, but who has a traumatic past to contend with and - amazing coincidence- was brought up in the very town where the inherited house is situated. The plot is convoluted and a bit boring. Not a patch on Jane Harper.

2 people found this helpful

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Fiona

Enjoyable

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 4 November 2019

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Having just read Scrublands I was pleased to find another book by Chris Hammer. This book continues with elements of the narrative from the first book and is a great read. Lots going on but clearly explained so as not to be confusing.

2 people found this helpful

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Stuart Farmer

Suspend disbelief

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 7 December 2019

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Enjoyed it BUT hero is totally insufferable, insensitive and if he can attract and retain a beautiful adult woman then I guess there is hope for the rest of us.

One person found this helpful

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W. A. Chorlton

Ozzie mystery

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 20 November 2019

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Not quite as good as Scrublands but still a good yarn. I felt it was a bit too repetitive and padded out.

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Paul Wilmot

Involving and complex

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 26 January 2020

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Close to 5 stars. Well written with well fleshed out characters and an intriguing, multi-layered plot. Perhaps a touch meandering in parts which slows things down but overall a page turner with class. Paul.

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Frank Hall

Great follow on from Shrubland

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 21 January 2020

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I rarely read two books by the same author consecutively but I did this time and really enjoyed continuing in the same style . Great characters , good story , very involving

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dhreview

First rate

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 14 February 2020

Verified Purchase

Scrublands was very good but this is even better. An early contender for best crime thriller of the year.

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ingrid lloyd

Gripping read.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 17 February 2020

Verified Purchase

Tightly woven plot keep you guessing right to the end. Really enjoyed the way Australia’s small towns are depicted. You won’t regret reading this.

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Lynda Minns

Very slow story line.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 10 February 2020

Verified Purchase

Beautifully descriptive but storyline was very slow ... lost interest and didn't finish the book.

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Rosalind Robb

Authentic Australian Crime fiction

Reviewed in the United States on 2 December 2019

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

Attention to describing the Australian coastal surroundings really brings this story to life. Having lived and travelled in Australia I found it enjoyable and authentic. An intriguing mystery involving the present and the past with a cast of characters that were both interesting and realistic. I read this over a few days and was always looking forward to picking it up again. That's when I know I am hooked on a book. I thoroughly enjoyed the first book in this series, Srublands, and this is a great follow up. Highly recommend.

One person found this helpful

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Kindle Customer

Absolutely wonderful story

Reviewed in the United States on 26 November 2019

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

A quite unique descriptive style that almost lets me taste and smell the world he describes. And I went down every false trail he offered. Didn’t guess the ending at all. Thoroughly enjoyed Scrublands and Silver even more. Thank you for a very enjoyable voyage into this world.

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