Hear No Evil: Shortlisted for the CWA Historical Dagger 2023

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Glasgow is expertly brought to life in this accomplished novel which takes as its base material the case of Jean Campbell, a young Deaf woman accused of murdering her baby. Alongside that, there are wonderful sensory descriptions of life at that time in urban Scotland - I can still smell the streets!

I loved Robert and how well he advocated for the deaf community especially as the story is set in 1817! I loved Hear No Evil , beautifully written and a real page turner with characters whose company I enjoyed greatly. As he goes about trying to establish what really happened to Campbell in Glasgow, Smith seems to be painting him more and more as a person completely rooted in his times.The idea of justice is interesting in this novel too - Jean's verdict is perhaps not what was expected and involved Robert (her translator) in somewhat of a moral dilemma.

Based on a case from Scottish legal history, Smith's novel skilfully combines crime fiction with a woman's struggle to speak the truth. Whether Sibbald was supremely confident about the state of the people in the cells or whether there were currently no other inhabitants apart from the newly arrived Glaswegian murderess, Robert couldn’t tell.The book focuses on Jean Campbell, a deaf woman from the Hebrides accused of throwing her baby in a river in Glasgow and it’s set in 1817. Jean's voice especially is a joy; she is sharp, pragmatic, and a true foil to Kinniburgh's middle-class sensibilities and ideals. For me, however, the most interesting element of the novel was when it was dealing with Jean's deafness and the prejudices deaf people faced and to some extent still do today.

Robert is essential to the court case and he takes it on himself to make decisions regarding what is happening. Kinniburgh has the difficult task of unravelling Jean’s story, immersing himself in the legal machinery of the Edinburgh court, and retracing Jean’s life up till that moment on the bridge.

The book was just packed with detail and writing that took you to the busy, dirty streets of early 19th century Edinburgh and Glasgow. It gives voice to a woman who didn’t have a voice, at a time when women in general had little voice. Ok so I'm going to put it out there and say that I'm Scottish but ashamedly haven't read a lot of Scottish books but this year I'm wanting to change that and have started with this (not to mention a perfect choice for my Around the World Challenge); what a book I chose to change things. The way the narrative moves back and forward in time filling in all the pieces of the story was very effective. The details of her existence are brought vividly to life and Smith shows us that she was strong and full of dignity despite being so disenfranchised.

Campbell’s court defence was made possible by a helper who found a way to interpret the hand signals she was making. Is it better to tell a plausible story which will more likely have a positive outcome, or tell the truth which will almost certainly condemn? Nevertheless, her evocations of 19th century Scottish life are very compelling, and readers will learn much about the history of the deaf, the emergence of sign language in Britain and the state of education for the deaf in the 19th century. It made me think of the harshness of this time for women and then add the fact Jean was deaf and you have a fascinating story to tell.He is tasked to help Jean Campbell (also a real person) when she is in jail on a charge of murdering her baby by throwing it off a local bridge. Thank you NetGalley and John Murray Press for my e-arc of this title, received in exchange for an honest review. I also loved that throughout the book we meet different people with different “theories” on deafness.