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

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"Hilda Johansson had thought things would improve once her entire family had moved to the United States. Of course, she'd known that her mother and older brother wouldn't be happy about her choice of beau, Irish Catholic Patrick Cavanaugh, but she's certain that if they'll just allow themselves to get to know him, they'll realize he is a wonderful man." "Somehow, even though her position in the Studebaker household is secure and she has most everything she ever wanted from her new life, there are still some things going wrong. Particularly troublesome is her twelve-year-old brother, Eric. He hates city life, he's been fired from a number of jobs, and he is increasingly restless under the thumb of their overly protective mother." "Then Eric's friend, who had run away to join the circus, is found beaten ... and perhaps worse. The news is shocking, and the idea that Eric might know more than he is saying is frightening." When Patrick and Hilda take Eric to the circus, they discover just how much more he does know, and that his silence may be the only thing that can save his life.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Mystery NOTES 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. (July) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews