Book excerpt: ‘As I studied the photograph more closely, I homed in on the boy’s expression. He looked whitewashed with fear.’ Vienna, 1938: Something’s amiss at the home of young Annabel Albrecht and it’s got nothing to do with the Nazis. First, her favourite maid Eva disappears, then her friend Oskar. What’s worse, her mother is taken away, leaving Annabel to fend for herself. London 2004: Max receives a letter from his dying and estranged mother, Annabel, who requests his help. Following their last argument he has no desire to contact her. But his curiosity is piqued by the black and white photograph she had enclosed: a disturbing image of his mother and forgotten childhood friend, Oskar Edelstein, taken in Vienna, 1938. Stranger still are the words, ‘you knew’, scrawled on its reverse. The photograph and the message, are, his mother writes, part of the reason for her distance towards him. She wants him to find Oskar... The photograph haunts him following his mother’s death – and there’s something about her old house in Vienna that’s not quite right. As much as Max wants to stay away, he can’t, as he uncovers his mother’s long-buried past and the secrets preserved by Annabel’s missing friends. But as Max is to discover, some children can never be completely silenced. Is he haunted by ghosts or by guilt, and will he ever escape? The Silent Children is a gripping tale of tragedy and revenge, a modern-day ghost story that will stay with you long after you turn the final page.