Without a Word

This is the seventh book in a mystery series featuring New York private investigator Rachel Alexander and her pit bull, Dashiell. The author, Carol Lea Benjamin, is a former detective and well-known dog trainer. The series is dark and emotionally layered, and this installment opens with a frantic father asking Rachel, in a Manhattan park, to locate his wife. She agrees only grudgingly, since the woman has been gone for five years and left no trace or explanation.

Rachel is most affected by the couple's daughter, a disturbed girl who has stopped speaking since her mother disappeared. The child is also a suspect in the stabbing death of her doctor, a wealthy neurologist killed alone in his office one night. Rachel is convinced the girl is not capable of murder, yet her inquiries suggest the answer may lie in her own history.

The story moves through betrayal, neglect, and a city that can feel as lonely and threatening as a child's nightmare. As Rachel digs deeper, she uncovers problems more tangled and painful than any she has faced, the kind of secrets someone was prepared to die or kill to keep hidden.