The Orchid Garden

The child is called the “silent saint” by the members of ghost churches all over China, and her drawings are said to bring rain to parched fields and healing to both animals and people. Her father was the leader of the outlawed Little Flock until he and her mother were imprisoned by the Party in a re-education camp in Tibet, where, as intended, they died. After their death, Lei Ling became one of thousands of baby girls living in over-crowded orphanages throughout China. She stays there for five years, never speaking, until an American, Susan Ramirez, applies to adopt her. The normally smooth adoption process ends in chaos in the Orchid Garden, and the repercussions are far reaching. A ghost church dies, Lei Ling disappears, and five years later, murder comes to a quiet Kansas town.

Follow Kat Shahar, the American widow of an Israeli war hero and the favorite niece of Susan Ramirez as she searches for the truth about Susan's death. Her search leads her first back to her hometown in Kansas and then to China, where she meets Patrick Chen, the enigmatic son of a Hong Kong billionaire. His interest in Lei Ling is inexplicable although his interest in Kat is easier to understand. Together they encounter several citizens of Lei Ling's home village who have many motives for wanting to find the child, also. Kat discovers that the Chinese protocol of Lei LIng's adoption was completed; it was at the American embassy that the process was halted, followed immediately by Lei Ling's disappearance from the Orchid Garden. The climax returns to the Orchid Garden, where Lei Ling, Kat Shahar and Patrick Chen's lives are again in danger.