The Thirteenth Riddle: A Poisoned Silence….in progress
After finishing Paris Noir, I am currently working on my fourth book, The Thirteenth Riddle: A Poisoned Silence. What is this book about? After the events of Paris Noir, Detective Hannah Walker has grown into a hardened, no-nonsense investigator who refuses to waste time. Her sense of humor has all but disappeared, and the bond between her and Raf is beginning to crack. Having lived in Paris for the past couple of years, Hannah is pulled back into a new mystery when she receives a call from Smith, who reports a woman found murdered with a riddle left beside her cold, lifeless body.
Once Hannah and Rafael return to the States, the tension between them explodes into a massive argument, and Hannah angrily tells him off. Not long after, Rafael is kidnapped, and Hannah becomes single-minded in her determination to find her godfather. She manages to rescue him, only to discover the depth of the tragedy: Raf has been poisoned. Now the race is on for Hannah to uncover who is responsible for the toxin running through his veins.
Her search introduces her to a prominent doctor named Stu, who claims to know where the antidote may be found—Lucerne, Switzerland. Armed with this lead, Hannah and Rafael embark on a fraught European journey that takes them to the picturesque but ominous streets of Lucerne. There they learn that the murdered woman was Gonzalez’s ex‑wife, and that she had undergone ECT at the infamous Die Klinik den Geist zu Heilen—a clinic whose promise of “healing the mind” may actually mean erasing it.
Refusing to watch her godfather suffer, Hannah makes a desperate and dangerous choice: she poisons herself with the same toxin so she can share Raf’s symptoms and track down the cure from within the same poisoned reality. As the toxin takes hold, Hannah endures vivid hallucinations and haunting dreams—a never‑ending train, a hallway of mirrors, and a surreal tea with an enemy—that blur the line between memory and menace. Driven by the love for her daughter and determination to save both Raf and herself, Hannah races to find the cure before they are both lost to silence in The Thirteenth Riddle: A Poisoned Silence.
