Tahoe Flight by Todd Borg

 

First Line: On a chilly evening in November, Avery Kingsley strolled along the sidewalk on the boulevard in Tahoe City on Lake Tahoe's northwest shore.

 

When Owen McKenna was a rookie on the San Francisco police force, he helped catch the killer of Benito Diaz's mother. Young Benito's testimony put the killer, Tucker Dopple, in prison. Twenty years later, McKenna is a private investigator in Lake Tahoe and Benito Diaz is an oncologist attending a doctors' reunion. Unfortunately, Tucker Dopple has been paroled and is determined to kill both McKenna and Diaz. 

But the two men have more problems than a murderous ex-con. The doctors and previous medical school classmates have scores to settle, and when McKenna gets in the way, he and his Great Dane, Spot, are kidnapped.

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With Street Casey in the process of adopting a nine-year-old deaf girl, Owen becomes part of a family, and this new phase of his life leads to a more sedate pace in Todd Borg's Tahoe Flight. This slower pace makes perfect sense because the author just can't put Owen's girlfriend, a little deaf girl, and dogs Blondie and Spot in jeopardy over and over again. Well, he could, but readers like me certainly wouldn't be very happy about it!

As always, Borg managed to astound me with a new way criminals have devised to make money-- one involving being able to fly in and out of less visible (and accessible) areas surrounding gorgeous Lake Tahoe. I do have to admit that the aviation logistics proved to be a bit too much and kept me away from one of the things I enjoy so much about this series: the characters.

Borg has a knack for creating intelligent characters that readers would love to make a part of their own families. Now there are children in the cast, and I'm enjoying their addition, too. Nine-year-old Camille shows readers how Street and Owen are adapting to life with a deaf child, and I really liked Benito Diaz's nephew, Damen. In fact, I'm hoping Damen will appear in a future book or two.

The pace may be slower in Tahoe Flight, but there's a barn burner of an ending when Owen and Spot are kidnapped, forced onto a plane, and taken over Lake Tahoe. I knew that nothing horrible was going to happen to Owen and Spot, but I certainly couldn't figure out how in the world they were going to get out of that mess!

I've loved this series from the beginning for its intelligent cast, its exciting mysteries, and its drop-dead beautiful setting. Chances are, if you're new to these books, you'll enjoy them for the exact same reasons.

Tahoe Flight by Todd Borg

ISBN: 9781931296311

Thriller Press © 2023

Paperback, 320 pages

Private Investigator, #21 Owen McKenna mystery

Rating: B

Source: the author