Hear the Dead: A Thriller

From award-winning author Ann Dávila Cardinal comes an edgy, genre-bending thriller following a retired photographer who begins to hear the murders of women she knew in her punk youth, forcing her to reckon with the past she's desperate to forget.

"Clever and beautifully written!" -- Helene Tursten, author of An Elderly Lady Is Up to No Good

One woman. A string of unsolved murders. Only she can hear the victims.

For more than forty years, Elena Altieri has been hiding from the tragedies of her New York City punk rock youth. Tragedies that left her best friend, Sin, dead, and other women in their orbit missing. Now, the past is catching up with her in more ways than one. Not only is she hearing strange noises under the hum of her tinnitus, but the photographs she took of a recently deceased musician are going viral, thrusting her back into a world she hoped would remain locked away forever.

When Elena begins to hear the screams of a woman ringing in her ears, she becomes convinced that she's somehow hearing Sin's murder. Desperate for answers, she has no choice but to revisit her past, and what she'll uncover will not only force her to reckon with her own fractured memories, but might prove that Sin, and other innocent women from their youth, were the victims of an unspeakable crime that only she can solve.

Old punks never die, and Elena's going to prove that.

Edgy, mysterious, and full of heart, Hear the Dead is at once an inventive and biting story following one aging woman desperate to solve crimes from her past, and a thought-provoking meditation on friendship, justice, and what it means to remember who we are.

Ann Dávila Cardinal is a Nuyorican author with eight published books. Her novels include the punk rock thriller, Hear the Dead, The Storyteller's Death, and We Need No Wings. Her story, "Her First Cruise Ship" appears in the Latine anthology, Something Followed us Home coming from Primero Sueño in September 2026. She also writes for children and young adults and teaches in the University of San Francisco's newest MFA in Writing program. She is a competitive powerlifter and part-time bookseller in Vermont.

Ann Dávila Cardinal is a Nuyorican author with eight published books. Her novels include the punk rock thriller, Hear the Dead, The Storyteller's Death, and We Need No Wings. Her story, "Her First Cruise Ship" appears in the Latine anthology, Something Followed us Home coming from Primero Sueño in September 2026. She also writes for children and young adults and teaches in the University of San Francisco's newest MFA in Writing program. She is a competitive powerlifter and part-time bookseller in Vermont.