Owen McKenna Books In Order

Publication Order of Owen McKenna Books

The Owen McKenna mysteries series written by Todd Borg has won the Best Mystery and Best Thriller Awards from the Bay Area Independent Publishers Association. It has also won the Best Mystery Silver Medal Ben Franklin Award. The Owen McKenna mysteries series has been chosen for the Top 5 list by both the prestigious Library Journal, and the Mystery News Reviewer G. Wedgwood. The Owen McKenna mysteries series have been placed on the Best New Fiction library lists and have also received top reviews and raves in leading trade journals and newspapers across the United States.

The Owen McKenna mysteries series is skillfully written and has a lot to offer. It has an original and likeable cast of characters, thrilling plots, is fast-paced, and the mysteries are complex enough to keep the reader in suspense until the end. The main character is Owen McKenna who is a former SFPD officer, who tragedy caused to give up his police work, and now makes a living as a Private Investigator in the Lake Tahoe area. Owen McKenna is the kind of man who is not afraid to bend the rules for a just cause. Owen does not carry a gun so he has to be creative at times in order to thwart those who to attack him in the course of his work.

Owen McKenna has a girlfriend named Street Casey who is a forensic entomologist and has a fiercely independent streak, and so they experience some relational issues. Street Casey oscillates from warm and caring to aloof, and many times she would rather spend time with her bugs than with people. Street Casey is a fascinating personality. The relationship between Owen and Street Casey maintains a delicious balance between frustration and intimacy.

Sheriff Diamond Martinez, McKenna’s friend, is a Mexican born US naturalized citizen whose hobbies include philosophy and collecting huge new vocabulary words. He seems like the kind of man it would be nice to sit and have a beer with. McKenna and Sheriff Diamond Martinez work together often, and the Sheriff’s big heart and dry wit make him a well addition to the cast of characters.

Tahoe Death Fall is the first book in the Owen McKenna series. In the book, a six year old girl falls to her death during a hike. Her heiress, who is a twin sister, hires McKenna eight years later to investigate the death. McKenna discovers some deadly family secrets, the likes of which he has never handled, including pending murder plans. The tragedy struck on their sixth birthday, while the twin sisters Jennifer and Melissa Salazar were hiking with their grandmother. Melissa lost her way and fell off a cliff on the rock slide above Emerald Bay in Lake Tahoe and died. Jennifer Salazar, eight years later decides to hire McKenna to investigate the death of her sister because she believes it was a murder. There is a problem though since Jennifer is under age and cannot sign the contract. With her father dead, her mother mentally ill, her legal guardian is her overprotective grandmother named Roberta Salazar, and she is so completely set against McKenna that she threatens him with kneecapping and a restraining order. McKenna decides to take up the case though Jennifer can not pay him. As McKenna starts his investigation another body is discovered. Stacy Casey, McKenna’s girlfriend and a forensic entomologist, analyses the maggots found on the body and her findings help McKenna to connect the corpse to the case. McKenna discovers information that takes him from Tahoe to Sans Francisco to a private island owned by a rich man off the coast of Santa Barbara. The island owner directs McKenna to Private sanatorium in the Nevada desert. The facility is surrounded by armed security guards, but McKenna manages to break in. There he learns a long buried secret that caused the murder of Jennifer’s sister and a number of her other family members. Jennifer is to be the next victim. McKenna rushes back to Tahoe as he realizes who the murderer is. The killer has Jennifer and she has only minutes left to live!

Tahoe Blow up is the second book of the Owen McKenna mystery series. In this book, Owen McKenna narrowly escapes burning in his log cabin in an arsonist set forest fire. It is only a month after he handled the decades old murder case in Tahoe Death Fall. The local fire department hires him to investigate the incidence. As McKenna starts working on the case, more fires follow and people perish in each case. Just before McKenna can close in on the arsonist, the fire starter kidnaps his girlfriend Street Casey. McKenna has just a few hours to save his girlfriend before Stacy Casey burns up in a fire so big that firefighters call it a BLOW UP. McKenna and his big dog named Spot have to brave the armed arsonist and a devastating forest fire to save his girlfriend’s life. The book opens with McKenna on the deck of his log cabin barbecuing a salmon steak. It is in the Month of September in the evening about 9 o’clock. His Harlequin Great Dane named Spot gives a little growl, he ignores at first, but the dog insists and McKenna calls his girlfriend. He asks her if she can see anything on the mountain where his cabin is situated. His girlfriend tells him to get out of the log cabin quickly as a big forest fire is headed to the cabin. McKenna calls 911 and he is told they have already received several reports. McKenna grabs the few precious items he can and jumps into his jeep as the fire draws close to his log cabin. As he picks and save his immediate neigbhour Mrs. Duchamp and her dog, it has started to rain but the rain is not heavy enough to stop the fire. As they head towards Street Casey’ place, McKenna can see more forest fires as firemen do their best to battle them. The next morning the Fire Station Chief, Terry Drier, calls Owen McKenna and invites him for a meeting in his fire office. McKenna goes over and Terry Drier informs that lucky his and Mrs. Duchamp’s log cabins were not damaged just singed. The fire department believes that the arsonist has a motive behind the attack and wants Owen McKenna to investigate the incident since McKenna has some successful track record in handling fire cases while in the police department. McKenna is to work with the Diamond Martinez who has been appointed as the fire investigator for the area by the Douglas County Sheriff’s Department.

One Response to “Owen McKenna”

1. Julia Bishop: 3 years ago

   Love all the Owen Mckenna books. It’s a great read and hard to put down. The plot twists are great. Thank you for writing one of my favorite books.

   Reply