Silent Witness [Mass Market Paperback]

Lindsay McKenna (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 2005

In the navy, blood runs thicker than water . . .

FBI criminal profiler Ellen Tanner transferred out of Washington, D.C., to escape the grief of losing a husband. But her new partner, San Diego navy JAG lieutenant Jim Cochran, is a challenge she never expected.

The last thing Cochran wants or needs in his world of order and duty is a woman. After a nasty divorce, he's convinced he's through with relationships. Then along comes Ellen. He knows opposites attract . . . just not how much.

Now a female Top Gun instructor has been murdered and the media is having a field day. Their instincts tell them there's more to this case than meets the eye -- but how do you unravel a deadly conspiracy in an institution where honor and silence go hand in hand?

Editorial Reviews

Review

"When it comes to action and romance, nobody does it better than Ms. McKenna." -- Romantic Times

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: HQN Books (December 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0373770715
• ISBN-13: 978-0373770717
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 4.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,256,831 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

That Gemini energy got the best of me in this life time! The best place to introduce the multi-facets of my varied life is through my blog: www.talesfromechocanyon.blogspot.com. There, you will me me, the author as I pen writing journal info for aspiring writers, the gardener who loves roses, Iris, Day lilies and anything else that blooms, the medical astrologer, the person who came from Eastern Cherokee metis background via my father, the horse lover, the Earth lover and the mystic.

I was raised in a metaphysical household. The strange was normal. My father, being the metaphysician he was, would often talk of ghosts coming through the house, who they were, what they said, and so on. I know this probably sounds pretty out of this world--but that was my world growing up. My father's Cherokee blood runs strong in me in many ways. He used to tell us stories all the time and I'm sure this rubbed off on me and fueled my desire to write, which started at age 13. My mother used to read us stories when he didn't tell us a story. I believe that reading being prominent in our household all conspired to help me be a storyteller when I grew up!

I went into the US Navy when I was eighteen years old. I became a meteorologist because I loved Father Sky and the cloud beings. Before I went into the military, I got my student pilot's license. I soloed at age sixteen in twelve hours time. I earned my money picking night crawlers every night in our orchard and selling them by the hundreds of dozens to local sporting goods stores in the area. By the time I went into the Navy at eighteen, I had forty hours of flight time logged. And because of my military background, I created the sub-genre of Military Romance in the romance publishing Industry in 1983 with Captive of Fate (Silhouette Special Edition). I write what I know and I honor and respect all men and women who either served or are serving our country. They are all heroes and heroines in my eyes.

I was a fencer (I met my husband, David, in fencing--we crossed swords and it was love at first parry...) for many years. Being part of the East Coast fencing salles, I was one of the few women to take on epee and saber--and fight the guys on the copper strip--and win. The women who refused to just use a foil to fence with, opened up a whole new era for women after us to fence all three weapons. Men said the epee and saber were 'too heavy' for us girls--but we showed them differently! Now, in the Olympics, women are allowed to fence in more than just foil. That makes me proud of our burgeoning efforts so long ago. Women can do anything!

I was one of the first women firefighters in Ohio back in 1983. I routinely rolled on 400 of the 600 fire calls a year we had, and knew how to drive the pumper, the tanker and do any job a volunteer firefighter has to do. I also took training in hazardous materials down at the Reynoldsburg Fire Academy in Columbus, Ohio.

My life has been one of breaking through stereotypes, breaking down doors closed to women and showing that women are smart, strong, and capable. As a Native American raised woman, I came from a matriarchal background--not a patriarchal one as most women come from. And because of that, my books show strong, smart women who are equal to any man. I like showing the world that women are equals. We don't need to say one gender is better than the other. Rather, we need to realize, honor and use everyone's best skills and talents to make this world a better place to live. I feel like I've lived about five lives packed into one and all of this adventure and experience is reflected in the books I write.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars unbelievable dialogue, December 29, 2005

By 

Mary F. Hazlett "mhazlett" (Akron, Ohio USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Silent Witness (Mass Market Paperback)

i've read mckenna's books for years. she has good plots, but in recent years the male characters just do not "do it" for me. the things they say don't ring true. the word i'd use would be "smarmy". for example, the male character in this book has a heart hardened by divorce. no one has penetrated this hard shell in 2 years. yet within an hour or two the heroine has done just that. the other thing that always bothers me in mckenna's books is that she tends to go overboard with explanations of military terms. two military people will be talking and one will use the initials of a procedure and then right after that he or she will also say the full name of the initials. it would be more believable to leave out the gobbledygook and just have a page at the beginning of the book with a list of the terms so the narration wasn't so wordy.

overall, good plot, poor characterization of the male lead.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A decent storyline, but lacking in the area of presentation, July 7, 2006

By 

JJN-1313 "JJN-1313" (Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Silent Witness (Mass Market Paperback)

Silent Witness was an okay book. It had a good point or two, but also a bunch of negatives.

The storyline was pretty interesting. It's very "military", lots of twists and turns. It was a well-thought storyline, easy to follow and it kept me reading. One issue I had with the whole plot though was what I call "author assumption": the author assumes we, as readers, should know something, when we don't. She refers to real-life military scandals of the past simply by name, but doesn't summarize them at all for those of us who don't know them. So I was pretty lost on those references.

As for the romance...I didn't care for it all that much. It wasn't, in a lot of ways, a very romantic book in the standard sense. Up until they end, I think Ellen and Jim share maybe two kisses. There's a sex scene at the end, but it wasn't written that well, and it seemed kind of plopped in there, and ill-fitting.

Aside from that, I just didn't buy into the romance. It was too...pretty. Ellen and Jim are always thinking or saying things like "you're so wonderful", "you bring the sun back into my life" and things like that. It was just too perfect and didn't seem realistic. Added to that, Ellen most of the time seemed to think of Jim as "Cochrane", which just seemed very impersonal.

The characters were very two-dimensional. Almost everything about them, and the book as a whole, was about the plot itself. While, yes, the plot is important, but if you're gonna develop a romance, you're characters need some meat. And it just wasn't there.

Rating: 2.5 / 5

3.0 out of 5 stars OK.....but not Great!, March 7, 2010

By 

T. Kramer (Georgia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Silent Witness (Mass Market Paperback)

This was definitely NOT a 5 star book. Probably a 2 1/2 or 3. Silent Witness was my first novel by Lindsay McKenna and even though it wasn't great, I will pick up another one by her and give it a try. I found the storyline a little too slow for my taste for the first half of the book. It did pick up toward the end and ended up being interesting. I also found that Ellen and Jim were a little flat and their romance lacking. Jim was a little too "hillbilly" for me. The author should have worked on making her characters a little more believable for the reader. I usually have a hard time parting with a book when I consider it good. In fact, I keep them to reread at a later time. This one is not a keeper, but if you can get it from the library or as a used book, read it.