Tahoe Silence (An Owen McKenna Mystery Thriller)

SalAnne "Silence" Ramirez was an exceptional artist and, according to one of her teachers, brilliant. She was also autistic and mute and had not spoken a single word in her 17 years. When Silence is kidnapped on the eve of the Tahoe Biker Festival, the best guess is that the perpetrators are the Granite Mountain Boys, the notorious biker gang with ties to the most infamous Super Max prison in the country. Detective Owen McKenna and his Great Dane Spot pursue the biker fraternity and their charismatic leader who speaks Aztec commands from Aztec gods. When the case seems hopeless, the kidnapped girl draws pictures of the kidnappers and figures out how to sneak them out of the house where she is held captive. But the pictures bring McKenna no closer to knowing where she is or why she was taken. Silence knows the reason. But that knowledge is locked up inside her mind. Time to save the girl is short. As McKenna tries to make sense of the autistic girl's drawings, he comes to a horrible realization. The kidnapper plans a ritual sacrifice at the next full moonrise...

Winner: Ben Franklin Award for Best Mystery of the Year.

Chosen by Library Journal as one of the Five Best Mysteries of the Year.

Tahoe Silence also made Amazon's Mystery Thriller Bestseller list.