Silent Echo

Jim Booker was once the best at finding the missing in Los Angeles-until his own body betrayed him. Now he's dying of AIDS-related cancer, propped up by painkillers and the loyalty of Numi, the only friend who hasn't abandoned him.

But when his former best friend comes begging for help to find his missing wife, Booker can't say no. Not just because the woman is Olivia-the woman Booker once loved-but because finding the lost is the one thing that still gives his ruined life meaning.

When Olivia turns up dead, her throat slashed, Booker refuses to let the disease killing him stop him from hunting her killer. Even if the LAPD doesn't want his help. Even if his own body is too weak to carry him down the next street.

As he digs into Los Angeles's seedy underbelly, Booker battles painful memories, old betrayals, and the terrifying possibility the murder might tie back to his own haunted past.

Silent Echo is a raw, unflinching, and unexpectedly moving noir about a dying man's last chance for redemption, perfect for fans of Michael Connelly, Lawrence Block, and classic hard-boiled PI fiction with a devastating twist.

★★★★★ "I don't like books that make me cry... except this one! A dying private eye gives his all to find the killer of his soul mate, the wife of his childhood friend. In studying the case, he feels it must be connected to his own brother's death many years ago. Each day could be his last, but with the help of his friend Numi, he works on, trying to solve the horrifying riddle. Moving, suspenseful, a love story. Superb book." ―Reviewer

★★★★★ "So Rain hit upon a brilliant idea. Write about the slow demise of the subject as he tries to solve a murder that has directly impacted his life, and may have even led to his own physical decline. You find very few writers today who actually succeed in the job of the novelist, so finding one like this is an unexpected treat." ―Reviewer

★★★★★ "No matter how many books I read, I am constantly amazed to pick up a book by somebody I've never read-and find he is a well-known author with many books out there being sold. But this book amazed me more for the content. I was privileged to work on three different books dealing with AIDS while working with Rainbow's End Publishing. All of them were wonderful, but this one blew me away with its intimacy, sensitivity, and revelation of living with AIDS. In this case, also compounded by cancer, which apparently was dormant and responded unfavorably to the virus. But I'm just spotlighting what Rain has shared so eloquently and compassionately." ―Reviewer

★★★★★ "This book is probably the most brutally honest account of a man's last days alive, struggling to breathe, to even nod his head as the untreatable cancer eats away at his lungs. It is a story of how he got the lung cancer (no, not from smoking) and why he is still alive two months after the expiration date pronounced by his doctors. Above all, it is a story of true friendship, a friendship that transcends the fear of an infectious disease. And it is the story of an unconditional love that gives our protagonist one last chance to redeem himself-to solve that murder that so shaped his life and his self-destruction." ―Reviewer

★★★★★ "This started out as a very typical J.R. Rain book for me. Like many others of his I have read, it is about a PI in California investigating a missing person. It definitely has his typical writing flare, which is so wonderful. But the story soon became less about the detective story, the mystery surrounding the murder, and more about the life of the PI, Jimmy. Usually that would bother me, but this was so well written, intertwined with the investigation, that it just made sense. This book is a murder mystery, yes, but it is also about a man who is dying and trying to resolve some issues before his death." ―Reviewer