In the 7th Owen McKenna mystery, TV talk show host Leah Printner had a successful life until a car accident killed her loving husband and left her face badly scarred, ending her thriving career. After Leah gets out of the hospital, the landlady of Leah's father tells Detective Owen McKenna that she believes a man is stalking Leah. The landlady thinks that both father and daughter are in danger. Will McKenna look into it? McKenna is only on the job a few hours before the father is murdered. When he realizes that the killer wants the daughter as well, McKenna rushes Leah into hiding. McKenna discovers that there is more than one killer, and that they are fixated on Grendel, the monster in the ancient, epic poem Beowulf. McKenna also learns that the crimes are linked to an art forgery of old-master paintings. Under the paralysis of fear and the trauma of injury, Leah's life hits bottom. The woman is broken and maybe beyond saving. But the killers made one fatal mistake. They took down the father and tried to kill the daughter on McKenna's watch...
Review
Library Journal
In his seventh adventure (after Tahoe Avalanche and the Ben Franklin Award-winning Tahoe Silence), Owen McKenna is asked to protect former TV talk-show host Leah Printner from a stalker but finds this task more difficult than he first thought it would be. Leah had lost her husband and half of her face in a devastating auto accident; so why is she now being pursued by a murderous stalker?
VERDICT Borg has written another white-knuckle thriller set in California's beautiful Lake Tahoe region. A sure bet for mystery buffs waiting for the next Robert B. Parker and Lee Child novels. -- Library Journal
Kirkus Reviews
A Lake Tahoe shamus and his harlequin Great Dane sniff out fake Rembrandts.
Wealthy Lauren Phelter is so concerned someone is stalking the tenants in her guest house that she hires cop-turned-shamus Owen McKenna (Tahoe Ice Grave, 2002, etc.) to protect them. But neither talk-show host Leah Printner, still recovering from the accident that killed her husband, nor her father, a retired dermatologist and skilled amateur painter, is interested in Owen's services. Moments after they decline his help, the doctor is shot and killed, leaving Leah practically catatonic with grief. While he investigates her father's death, Owen stashes her on a luxury yacht for safe keeping along with Spot, his giant Great Dane, who's the world's best watchdog because he does more than watch. Three clues - a crayfish claw, the mention of Grendel, the monster Beowulf battled, and the doctor's secret atelier - lead Owen to a shoal of art mavens and the suspicion that the late doctor had been creating a series of purported Rembrandt canvases called the Night Portraits. Bullets fly and suspects lie (so does Leah). The resolution links the death of Leah's husband, her dad's forgeries and her own misfortunes back to a still earlier accident.
An action-packed thriller with a nice-guy hero, an even nicer dog and some worthwhile advice based on meticulous research explaining how to forge and frame an Old Master. -- Kirkus Reviews
About the Author
Todd Borg is the author of the Owen McKenna Tahoe Mystery series. Featuring former San Francisco Homicide Inspector Owen McKenna and his Great Dane Spot, Borg's novels have won the Ben Franklin Award for Best Mystery of the Year, won both Best Mystery and Best Thriller awards from the Bay Area Independent Publisher's Association, received starred reviews from the Library Journal, Midwest Book Review, Mystery News, and other trade publications, been chosen by Library Journal as one of the Top 5 Mysteries of the Year, and made Amazon's Mystery/Thriller Bestseller List.
Description:
In the 7th Owen McKenna mystery, TV talk show host Leah Printner had a successful life until a car accident killed her loving husband and left her face badly scarred, ending her thriving career. After Leah gets out of the hospital, the landlady of Leah's father tells Detective Owen McKenna that she believes a man is stalking Leah. The landlady thinks that both father and daughter are in danger. Will McKenna look into it? McKenna is only on the job a few hours before the father is murdered. When he realizes that the killer wants the daughter as well, McKenna rushes Leah into hiding. McKenna discovers that there is more than one killer, and that they are fixated on Grendel, the monster in the ancient, epic poem Beowulf. McKenna also learns that the crimes are linked to an art forgery of old-master paintings. Under the paralysis of fear and the trauma of injury, Leah's life hits bottom. The woman is broken and maybe beyond saving. But the killers made one fatal mistake. They took down the father and tried to kill the daughter on McKenna's watch...
Review
Library Journal
In his seventh adventure (after Tahoe Avalanche and the Ben Franklin Award-winning Tahoe Silence), Owen McKenna is asked to protect former TV talk-show host Leah Printner from a stalker but finds this task more difficult than he first thought it would be. Leah had lost her husband and half of her face in a devastating auto accident; so why is she now being pursued by a murderous stalker?
VERDICT Borg has written another white-knuckle thriller set in California's beautiful Lake Tahoe region. A sure bet for mystery buffs waiting for the next Robert B. Parker and Lee Child novels. -- Library Journal
Kirkus Reviews
A Lake Tahoe shamus and his harlequin Great Dane sniff out fake Rembrandts.
Wealthy Lauren Phelter is so concerned someone is stalking the tenants in her guest house that she hires cop-turned-shamus Owen McKenna (Tahoe Ice Grave, 2002, etc.) to protect them. But neither talk-show host Leah Printner, still recovering from the accident that killed her husband, nor her father, a retired dermatologist and skilled amateur painter, is interested in Owen's services. Moments after they decline his help, the doctor is shot and killed, leaving Leah practically catatonic with grief. While he investigates her father's death, Owen stashes her on a luxury yacht for safe keeping along with Spot, his giant Great Dane, who's the world's best watchdog because he does more than watch. Three clues - a crayfish claw, the mention of Grendel, the monster Beowulf battled, and the doctor's secret atelier - lead Owen to a shoal of art mavens and the suspicion that the late doctor had been creating a series of purported Rembrandt canvases called the Night Portraits. Bullets fly and suspects lie (so does Leah). The resolution links the death of Leah's husband, her dad's forgeries and her own misfortunes back to a still earlier accident.
An action-packed thriller with a nice-guy hero, an even nicer dog and some worthwhile advice based on meticulous research explaining how to forge and frame an Old Master. -- Kirkus Reviews
About the Author
Todd Borg is the author of the Owen McKenna Tahoe Mystery series. Featuring former San Francisco Homicide Inspector Owen McKenna and his Great Dane Spot, Borg's novels have won the Ben Franklin Award for Best Mystery of the Year, won both Best Mystery and Best Thriller awards from the Bay Area Independent Publisher's Association, received starred reviews from the Library Journal, Midwest Book Review, Mystery News, and other trade publications, been chosen by Library Journal as one of the Top 5 Mysteries of the Year, and made Amazon's Mystery/Thriller Bestseller List.