Without a Word
A Rachel Alexander Mystery
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4.5 • 26 Ratings
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- $6.99
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
Private investigator Rachel Alexander and her pit bull Dashiell return in this stylish, dark, emotionally complex seventh mystery from former detective and noted dog trainer Carol Lea Benjamin.
When a distraught father approaches private investigator Rachel Alexander in a New York City park, asking her to help find his missing wife, Rachel accepts––reluctantly. After all, the chances of finding a woman who disappeared without a trace––and without a word––five years earlier are slim. But it's the missing woman's daughter who touches her most deeply––a troubled young girl whose mother's disappearance has rendered her mute. The child is also suspected of the murder of her doctor, a rich neurologist who was brutally stabbed one night while he was alone in his office. Rachel knows the disturbed girl can't be a murderer, but her investigation reveals that against all odds, it could be someone from her past. And against a backdrop of betrayal, neglect, and a city at times as lonely and frightening as a child's worst nightmares, Rachel's involvement in the case uncovers issues more complex, and more heartbreaking, than she's ever seen––problems that someone was willing to die, or even kill, for.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Silence speaks volumes in Benjamin's heartfelt eighth Rachel Alexander mystery (after 2004's Fall Guy), a complex portrait of a severely damaged child and her emotionally cut-off father. The Greenwich Village PI agrees to search for photograper Leon Spector's wife, Sally, who five years earlier took the dog for a walk and never came back. Sally left behind her bereft husband and daughter, Madison, a precocious child who stopped talking three days later. Leon and Madison's obvious pain draws Rachel to them. Suffering from a nervous disorder, the girl has been in therapy with Dr. Erich Bechman, who has used botox to stop her tics. When Bechman turns up dead, apparently stabbed with a syringe following one of Madison's outbursts, the police assume she's the culprit. Leon hopes against hope that Sally's return will cause the girl to speak at least enough to tell what happened. Certain that the girl is innocent, Rachel determines to track down the real killer. In the process, she gives voice to the problems of many people caught up in circumstances beyond their control, for whom only desperate measures seem the answer.
