Silent Joe

Joe Trona carries the visible marks of a terrible injury suffered as an infant, and he was five when Will and Mary Trona adopted him and gave him a loving home. Now a deputy with the Orange County Sheriff's Department, Joe remains fiercely devoted to Will, a powerful figure in local politics. When Will is murdered, Joe sets out to find out who killed him and why, and the search pulls him into the county's tangled politics and the secrets of the man he revered. As the separate threads of the case begin to cross, Joe is also forced to face the painful truth of his own earliest years. T. Jefferson Parker's novel won the 2002 Edgar Award for Best Novel.