She doesn t have a name. She s got the clothes on her back， a coloring book， a necklace， and a stick of bubble gum. She s ex parte. She s not talking. That s why they want you. With these words， Dr. Sylvia Strange--the tough forensic psychiatrist in Sarah Lovett s critically acclaimed novels Dangerous Attachments and Acquired Motives--is drawn into the world of a ten-year-old child too scared to speak. In A Desperate Si-lence， Dr. Strange must uncover this little girl s secrets or else the knowledge she possesses just might die with her.What has this fragile child witnessed that makes her so dangerous? Dr. Strange soon learns that the girl s tattered history reaches across the border to the drug lords of Mexico and across town to a killer on death row. The deeper she delves into the mute child s psyche， the more Dr. Strange realizes just how frighteningly vulnerable her patient is and how vital the bond between them has become. A second attempt on the young girl s life by a sadistic madman pushes Dr. Strange into overdrive， struggling to put the pieces of this terrifying puzzle together before it is too late. With roller-coaster suspense， a tightly woven plot， the eerie texture of the American South-west， and a heroine as sexy as she is intellectually provocative， Sarah Lovett s A Desperate Silence cements her reputation among the best suspense writers at work today.