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Owen's Page

Owen McKenna used to be a cop in San Francisco.  A tragic event (not revealed until the second book, TAHOE BLOWUP) made him give up the profession (and guns) and move to Lake Tahoe to start over.  Owen started his practice as a private detective and, working out of a space on Kingsbury Grade, he has succeeded at every case he has taken on.

Owen lives with Spot, his Harlequin Great Dane, in a tiny log cabin on the east shore of Lake Tahoe.  Tahoe straddles the California/Nevada border so that Owen lives on the Nevada side and looks across at the Sierra Nevada mountains in California.  Owen's cabin sits on the side of a mountain, 1,000 feet above the lake.  As you can see in the picture, he has an amazing view.

After moving to Tahoe, Owen met Street Casey, a striking, too-thin woman who earns her living as a forensic entomologist.  Owen and Street are very close to each other, however Owen's attachment is greater.  He would like to establish a live-in relationship and has asked her to marry him.  But Street keeps her distance. It's not that she doesn't love him, but that the horrors of her childhood taught her that she could depend on no one but herself.

Street periodically helps Owen with his cases.  When a body is found, Street takes maggot samples.  By studying the species and their development, Street can determine the time the victim died and other aspects to the death.

owen's interest in art

One of Owen's best weapons in the pursuit of bad guys is his love of art.  Although he is not an art expert, Owen has a large collection of art books which he loves to look at.  While his interests are wide ranging, he usually has a current favorite painting that he keeps turning back to.  In TAHOE DEATHFALL, his favorite painting is Edward Hopper's New York Movie.  A picture of a beautiful young woman all alone in the side of a crowded movie theater, New York Movie is a study of isolation and loneliness. The painting provides Owen with surprising insights into the case he is trying to solve. 

In  TAHOE BLOWUP, Owen's favorite painting is Albert Bierstadt's The Sierra Nevada In California.  The painting is a fantastically beautiful rendition of a pristine mountain landscape, untouched by humans.  While Owen is chasing a murderous arsonist who is burning down Tahoe's forests, the Bierstadt painting helps Owen to understand that forest arson is a kind of sacrilegious attack against the church of nature. This new perspective helps Owen identify the killer.

In TAHOE ICE GRAVE,  Owen spends some time thinking about two sculptures that Street has given him. One is a bronze version of Auguste Rodin's Eternal Spring.

Owen comes to think of Eternal Spring as example of pure passion rendered in a sculpture. (the version to the left is bronze; the version to the right is in stone.) The raw power of the emotion between the young lovers moves him.

In contrast, Calder's mobiles seem to be entirely about harmony and logic in a beautiful way. Owen comes to see them in terms of balance. Throughout TAHOE ICE GRAVE, Owen contrasts Balance and Passion as a way to look at the world and possibly learn more about his cases. Calder and Rodin seem to exemplify the two concepts.

The Calder above is from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

In  TAHOE KILLSHOT Owen looks at a painting by Turner. Somewhat abstracted, it shows a the swirl and rage of a snowstorm engulfing a steamboat.

Owen ponders the painting and its meaning while he tries to solve the case of the two young women who have died. But before he gets far in that line of thought, Street intervenes and suggests that he should only consider the painting as a picture of a ferocious snowstorm and not as a metaphor that might instruct him in his case.

owen's personality

Like most fictional detectives, Owen is a loner, happy to be with the company of just himself and Spot. However, unlike most of his fictional colleagues, Owen is a loner by default, not by choice. But as mentioned above, Owen's girlfriend Street keeps herself at a distance because she is afraid of getting too close to someone, becoming dependent on them, and then being devastated if it doesn't work out.

Owen has friends, especially Deputy Diamond Martinez of the Douglas County Sheriff's Office, Mallory, a Commander with the South Lake Tahoe Police Department and Glenda Gorman, reporter for the Herald among others. While Owen's friendships are significant, he doesn't spend a lot of time hanging out and being buddies with anyone. He'd rather be with Street. Barring that, he's happy to be alone with Spot, hiking, cooking, or sipping a glass of wine while sitting on his deck enjoying the world's greatest view. Sometimes, as with Diamond in TAHOE KILLSHOT, Owen finds himself spending a lot of time with someone. Shaped by Diamond's recent interest in philosophers, Owen and Diamond probe the nature of friendship, of self-critique, of the rule of law and the abuse of power by those in power. They also ruminate on the deadly danger that threatens them and Spot.

owen's best pal

Owen's main companion is his Great Dane Spot. He takes Spot with him on his investigations, and Spot even helps at times, serving as intimidator, enforcer and olfactory expert.

While Owen cares deeply for Spot, he doesn't accord him human-like status. Spot still eats dog food out of a dog bowl (most of the time, anyway!) and Spot sleeps on a dog bed. But like most dog owners, Owen recognizes that Spot has emotions and intelligence that far exceed what non-dog owners are willing to grant the species. And when Spot does something seriously wrong, (the possibility of which happens in TAHOE BLOWUP,) Owen is as pained as any parent. When Spot gets hurt, as happens in TAHOE KILLSHOT, Owen suffers as if he'd been hurt himself.

In each of the novels in the series Spot has a starring role in the plot as in Owen's life. In this way, Owen is like many readers whose dogs play a central role in their lives. Nevertheless, the novels are not "dog books," nor does the dog aspect take over the stories. Spot is an important character and companion and plays an important role, but the books are not about Spot.

owen's troubles

When Owen was a cop in San Francisco, he was involved in a shooting tragedy (revealed in TAHOE BLOWUP. As a result, he gave up guns and his career and moved to Tahoe to start over. Of course, like most fictional detectives, Owen is regularly involved in situations where he very much needs a gun. (As a footnote, nearly all ex-cops keep a gun, and many of them carry a gun on their person.) Yet Owen won't give in and acquire one. When the killer targets him and Spot in TAHOE KILLSHOT, Owen rues his decision to not have a gun, yet at the same time thinks a gun wouldn't be worth the risk.  (In writing circles, this emotional baggage is known as a psychic wound. Most people, real or fictional, have psychic wounds. Some have physical wounds. Both kinds of wounds reveal character and help to create a sense of verisimilitude or reality.)