What happened to the most famous missing person in British History
The Rest is Silence follows the story of Muriel Mead, an introspective schoolgirl who disappears from a village lane on the eve of World War II.
Was she a victim or simply a young woman determined to live on her own terms?
Told across companion narratives, The Rest is Silence presents the radically different accounts of two women bound to Muriel by memory, longing, and loss. As each narrator searches for answers, their stories reveal not a neat singular truth but a fractured mosaic—coloured by their own convictions about choice, possibility, and the nature of knowing.
The Rest is Silence offers a thoughtfully crafted meditation about the stories we tell, the silences we keep, and what it means to live out of step with the mainstream.
What the author says
The Rest is Silence began years before I started writing it. I had an image in my head - a person is seen entering one end of a short green lane but never appears at the other. And that was it. While the image wouldn’t go away, I knew I didn’t want to write a crime novel. I wanted to explore questions of how we access and assess the truth. So I decided to write two books, one written in the style of a true crime, the other as a creative biography. When read side by side, these parallel ‘true’ accounts offer the reader a 360-degree view of the same story, out of which multiple truths emerge.
‘I read the book in two sittings, and a couple of weeks on I’m still thinking about it.’
Read the Excerpt
What happened to the most famous missing person in British History
The Rest is Silence follows the story of Muriel Mead, an introspective schoolgirl who disappears from a village lane on the eve of World War II.
Was she a victim or simply a young woman determined to live on her own terms?
Told across companion narratives, The Rest is Silence presents the radically different accounts of two women bound to Muriel by memory, longing, and loss. As each narrator searches for answers, their stories reveal not a neat singular truth but a fractured mosaic—coloured by their own convictions about choice, possibility, and the nature of knowing.
The Rest is Silence offers a thoughtfully crafted meditation about the stories we tell, the silences we keep, and what it means to live out of step with the mainstream.
What the author says
The Rest is Silence began years before I started writing it. I had an image in my head - a person is seen entering one end of a short green lane but never appears at the other. And that was it. While the image wouldn’t go away, I knew I didn’t want to write a crime novel. I wanted to explore questions of how we access and assess the truth. So I decided to write two books, one written in the style of a true crime, the other as a creative biography. When read side by side, these parallel ‘true’ accounts offer the reader a 360-degree view of the same story, out of which multiple truths emerge.
‘I read the book in two sittings, and a couple of weeks on I’m still thinking about it.’
Read the Excerpt
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