Jesse, a college student home for the summer and his sixteen-year-old brother Bry went to a wild party. They got a ride there with a friend, but there was enough alcohol at the party that soon their friend was incapacitated and they decided they’d be safer walking home. It wasn’t that far, after all. It was pitch black dark at 11:30 at night, and suddenly Jesse noticed headlights up behind them, pointing right at them. He yelled at Bry to jump, and then he himself jumped off the shoulder of the road onto the property that stretched alongside. Bry never heard him yell – Bry was deaf. The car struck Bry and sped away, leaving him for dead, with Jesse as the only witness.
The police ask Jesse to remember everything he can about that night, but he has a mental block against the things he saw. He badly wants to catch the person who did this awful thing, but the guilt he feels over living, when Bry had died, is eating him up and he can’t concentrate. With the help of Chloe, the girl Bry had a crush on, he starts an investigation. Chloe makes posters by the dozens, asking anyone who saw what happened to please, call in. Businesses around town put up money for a reward, and Jesse goes from store to store all over the area, asking questions. It’s all he can do, and he feels a little fanatical about it. He couldn’t keep Bry from getting killed, but he could help find his killer.
He starts studying cars in parking lots, trying to find a car that looks like the one that hit Bry. If he could even tell the police the make of the car, that would be something.
Little by little, his memory comes back and he’s able to give the police more to go on. His own feelings for Chloe are getting stronger, although he’s afraid to act on them, because Bry had loved her too. When all the pieces of the mystery come together, neither of them will be the same again.
“A Sudden Silence” was a fabulous young adult read. Introspective, thought-provoking, suspenseful – I read it in one sitting and was thoroughly moved by it. I definitely recommend it for a quick summer read.
(This book was published in 1988 by Ballantine Books.)
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