THE SILENT SISTER by Diane Chamberlain

Riley, now in her twenties, was two years old when her sister Lisa, a 17-year-old violin prodigy with a very promising future, apparently committed suicide.  Riley’s mother never really recovered from the loss of her daughter and predeceased Riley’s father, who has just died.   Spending the summer going through all the stuff in the house where she grew up, Riley uncovers some surprising facts about her family and what may have prompted Lisa to take her own life.  New mysteries keep cropping up, as Riley tries to connect with her brother Danny, who suffers from PTSD and harbors ill feelings toward all of their family members who are no longer alive.  Their father owned an RV park, and left his pipe collection to a married couple, Verniece and Tom Kyle, in residence there, who may be able to help unravel some of the family mysteries, if Riley can bear Tom’s puzzling animosity.  Riley’s shifting reality makes her somewhat impulsive and not always rational, but Danny is even less rational, and I never really did figure out why he was so angry with their parents.  For me, he was the most difficult character to relate to.  If anything, the truth about what happened with Lisa should have made him irate, whereas Lisa’s apparent suicide should have made him sympathetic toward his parents.  I think this novel works better as a dysfunctional family saga than as a mystery, as I found some of the twists and turns to be not wholly unexpected.  I enjoyed the book, but there was nothing particularly special about it.