Without a Word

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.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Fiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.