Say No More: The Thrilling Next Installment in Hank Phillippi Ryan’s Award-Winning Jane Ryland Series! When Boston reporter Jane Ryland reports a hit and run, she soon learns she saw more than a car crash–she witnessed the collapse of an alibi. Working on an expose of sexual assaults on college campuses for the station’s new documentary unit, Jane’s just convinced a date rape victim to reveal … victim to reveal her heartbreaking experience on camera. However, a disturbing anonymous message–SAY NO MORE–has Jane really and truly scared.
Homicide detective Jake Brogan is on the hunt for the murderer of Avery Morgan, a hot-shot Hollywood screenwriter. Her year as a college guest lecturer just ended at the bottom of her swimming pool in the tight-knit and tight-lipped Boston community called The Reserve. As Jake chips his way through a code of silence as shatterproof as any street gang, he’ll learn that one newcomer to the neighborhood may have a secret of her own.
A young woman faces a life-changing decision–should she go public about her assault? Jane and Jake–now semi-secretly engaged and beginning to reveal their relationship to the world–are both on a quest for answers as they try to balance the consequences of the truth.
At the Publisher’s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
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Hank Phillippi Ryan is a suspenseful and gifted storyteller. Series character Jane Ryland is a witness to a hit and run – but the threatening message she receives is, Say No More. A smart, fast-moving, thought-provoking story of truth vs. silence.
Loved it!
Once you start you won’t be able to look away!
As soon as I finished reading Say No More, I had to go back to the beginning. True –- I had read it fast, wanting to know how it ended. Too much suspense for my poor heart! But as I read it for the second time, I realized that what had happened was that I could not be just a witness. I needed to get inside the story. Its power was too strong and would not leave me. So, I stopped and tried to analyze my feelings. What was it that made this particular story so powerful?
It is not only the suspense. It also has to do with the characters. Their names indicate the sections devoted to them as each is given a turn, but they are so well portrayed that you know who they are without needing to read their names. Their turns are not in the first person but in the narrator’s voice. Still, having a section devoted to each made me feel I got to know them better, and understand their role in the story. And I also got to love Jake Brogan even more!
The manner in which the plots become interwoven is gripping and makes the reader want to know more all the time. There’s not a single moment to be distracted. That’s especially the case with the plot about Jane Ryland’s documentary, meant to reveal the ugly truth about college by exposing a tragic campus-wide reality – sexual abuse. She is told twice in anonymous letters to SAY NO MORE – just that. But Jane doesn’t know if this refers to her documentary or to her other endeavors. Neither does the reader. Double the suspense, as we know that Jane cannot be told what to do or say!
Opera plays a big role in the story, and “Tosca” takes on a life of its own. Opera also conveys the potent feeling expressed in Puccini’s famous “Nessun Dorma” aria (“None shall sleep”) from “Turandot”. The feeling is also evident in this book — just the one word repeated forcefully at the end, “Vincerò!” (I will win!) is enough. This word is repeated throughout the novel by one of the female characters, and in the end, together with remembering Tosca’s role in Puccini’s opera by that name, where Tosca is a victim of an evil man, it helps the character become free. (By listening to the aria, one can one feel its strength more intensely. You may want to hear it to “feel” it: Pavarotti – Nessun Dorma 1994 [With Lyrics] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTFUM…)
Say No More is a story to be savored – intoxicating as a good wine, satisfying as all chocolate … stimulating, seducing, possessing a unique and magical quality, as all of Ryan’s other books. Every new book makes me like it better than the ones before, which only attests to the intensity and accomplishments of this author’s writing.
Please, Hank Phillippi Ryan, do say more. And soon!
When Jane witnesses a hit and run on her way to interview a source, she becomes embroiled in a case much bigger than she thinks she will be. Meanwhile, her story on campus rape is heating up. And her boyfriend, cop Jake Brogan, is working on the case of a suspicious death when an adjunct professor dies in a swimming pool.
And once again we are off on a fantastic ride. We get the story from a total of five points of view, and it is always fun to switch back to other characters and see how they are progressing. While Jane trying to get out of testifying really bothered me (especially trying to hide behind the fact that she’s a reporter), I did like the growth it brought to her character. The new cast is strong, and the arcs for the viewpoint characters are wonderful. The story moves quickly wish so much going on that it is almost impossible to put the book down.
I’ve liked this series from the get-go. Say No More is a solid addition to it.
A front cover blurb calls it ‘A rocket-paced thriller.’ I’d say it’s more like a long high-speed trip on the Interstate. I’m more partial to books like that anyway. I like stories that let me catch my breath every so often.
Like every book in the series, this one has Jane and Jake pursuing separate investigations – Jane a story about rapes on college campuses, Jake the murder of a professor – that eventually run into each other. But Jane’s life is complicated by witnessing a hit and run and Jake’s by a CI in danger. Meanwhile, their relationship continues to grow and evolve at a real-world pace.
But two things seemed off to me.
In the opening chapter, Jane and Fiola are in the TV station’s motor pool Ford and Jane mentions its leather seats. I’d think if the station was buying Fords, they wouldn’t opt up to leather seats, would stick with the basic cloth or vinyl ones.
And in the fourth chapter, when the cop greets Jake at the murder scene, it’s never made clear whether T’shombe Pereira is male or female until much later in the chapter. It’s a minor point, but it kept me wondering instead of focusing on the story.
The ending left Jake and Jane’s future a bit up in the air. Another author I enjoy did that with two of his series, and I keep waiting for him to continue their stories. I hope Ms. Ryan will continue with Jake and Jane’s story, because when she does, I’ll read them.