Not a Sound: Thriller Novel for Mystery Lovers

Amelia Winn, an ex-nurse trying to rebuild her life in rural Iowa, can hear not a sound.At the beginning of this captivating suspense novel, we learn that Amelia was rendered profoundly deaf by a hit-and-run driver. She lost her job in the emergency room. She became an alcoholic. Her husband kicked her out. Contact with her stepdaughter was restricted. Fighting depression, she stopped drinking, learned sign-language and lip-reading, acquired Stitch, a big Slovakian service dog, and hopes to land a clerical job in a cancer center. Then, in the river near her cabin, she discovers the body of Gwen, another nurse and once a good friend, who had been brutally strangled.Is Amelia in danger? An intruder sneaks into her cabin. Someone wants people to think she is drinking again. Besides Stitch, whom can she trust? Her ex-husband, who didn’t want her to take the job at the cancer center? Her friend the cop, who warns her not to play detective? Her odd neighbor? The dork who once dated Gwen? Amelia’s new boss? He berates her, now a mere clerk, for saving the life of a woman who collapsed in the waiting room. While entering records into the center’s computer system, she finds anomalies. She wonders if Gwen suspected something at the cancer center was amiss.The cliff-hanging (well, bluff-hanging) climax reminded me of the 1967 movie “Wait Until Dark,” in which Audrey Hepburn plays a blind woman who must fight for her life at the end.Best-selling author Heather Gudenkauf is partially deaf, herself. So am I. Both of us must struggle to hear others in a noisy environment. She told bookish.com, “I wanted to feature a heroine who is smart, strong and fiercely independent, who happens to be deaf.” Amelia Winn is all that.You will root for Amelia even if your hearing is 100%.