Voice with No Echo
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4.5 • 6 Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
A long-buried family secret and a chance encounter with an estranged sibling force police detective Jimmy Vega to confront his deepest fears in this gripping new mystery by award-winning author Suzanne Chazin . . .
It's spring in Lake Holly, New York, a time of hope and renewal. But not for immigrants in this picturesque upstate town. Raids and deportations are on the rise, spurring fear throughout the community.
Tensions reach the boiling point when the district attorney’s beautiful young bride is found hanging in her flooded basement, an apparent victim of suicide. But is she, wonders Vega? If so, where is her undocumented immigrant maid? Is she a missing witness, afraid to come forward? Or an accessory to murder?
Vega gets more help than he bargained for when Immigration and Customs Enforcement sends an investigator to help find—and likely deport—the maid. It’s Vega’s half-sister Michelle, the child who caused his father to leave his mother. Now an ICE agent, Michelle tangles with Vega and his girlfriend, immigrant activist Adele Figueroa. The law is the law, Michelle reminds Vega. And yet, his heart tells him he needs to dig deeper, not just into the case but into his past, to a childhood terror only Michelle can unlock.
While Vega searches for the demon from his youth, he discovers one uncomfortably close by, erecting a scheme of monstrous proportions. It’s a race against the clock with lives on the line. And a choice Vega never thought he’d have to make: Obey the law. Or obey his conscience. There’s no margin for error . . .
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
At the start of Chazin's touching and disturbing fifth Jimmy Vega mystery (after 2019's A Place in the Wind), Holocaust survivor Max Zimmerman asks his friend Det. Jimmy Vega to help his synagogue's longtime Salvadoran handyman, Edgar Aviles, whose temporary legal status has been rescinded. Edgar faces deportation, even though his wife is too ill to work and his son has leukemia. Jimmy can only refer Edgar to his girlfriend, Adele Figueroa, the director of an immigrant outreach center. Edgar's case takes an unexpected turn when Jimmy is assigned to investigate the apparent suicide of Talia Crowley, the DA's wife, found hanged in the basement of the couple's Lake Holly, N.Y., mansion. Talia's illegal immigrant housekeeper, who's Edgar's niece, has gone missing. Meanwhile, Jimmy must work with his estranged half-sister, ICE agent Michelle Vega-Lopez, whose determined attempts to reestablish bonds force Jimmy to confront his own painful past. This timely tale of the plight of immigrants whose uncertain status makes them vulnerable to abuse offers no easy answers. Chazin smoothly integrates complex social issues into a satisfying whodunit.
