Owen McKenna

Created by Todd Borg

A former San Francisco homicide dick, OWEN McKENNA quit the police department after a personal tragedy and moved into a tiny log cabin up in the mountains, overlooking Lake Tahoe. He’s hung out a shingle as a private detective and works out of a rented office space on Kingsbury Grade on the South Shore, occasionally assisted in his investigations by his Harlequin Great Dane, Spot; his exceedingly patient forensic entomologist (ie: CSI bug doctor) girlfriend, Street Casey and an occasional Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.

The author, Todd Borg, you’ll be shocked to discover, is a Tahoe native, and one of the more consistently entertaining private eye writers you’ve probably never heard of. Yet he’s quietly amassed an impressive body of work with the McKenna series, doing it the old fashioned way–by writing well (unlike many of his Amazonian brethren, who think chocking up four, five or more books a year is the way to go). The books are solid, well-crafted reads; nothing flashy, perhaps, but Owen serves as a dependable, no-nonsense narrator, thoughtful and watchful, yes, but also always ready to roll up his sleeves and  do what must be done. And as a result, Borg has nabbed the Ben Franklin Award for Best Mystery of the Year for his debut, Tahoe Deadfall (2001), making Library Journal‘s Top 5 Mysteries of the Year list several times, receiving rave reviews from respected sources like Kirkus and Publisher’s Weekly, and making Amazon’s own Mystery/Thriller and Private Investigator Bestseller Lists numerous times.

NOVELS

FURTHER INVESTIGATION

  • Todd Borg
    The author’s official web site.

THE DICK OF THE DAY

  • July 11, 2021
    THE BOTTOM LINE: The rugged, action-packed Tahoe series is one of the more consistently entertaining P.I. series you’ve never heard of, a quietly impressive body of work done the old fashioned way–by writing well.
Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.

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