The Devil Went Quiet 

Inspired by the historic Fountain murders, The Devil Went Quiet is a literary novel about inheritance, silence, and the systems that turn violence into power.

In 1896, New Mexico attorney Albert J. Fountain and his young son disappeared while traveling across the desert. Their bodies were never found, and the crime was never solved. The case became a symbol of how violence, land, and political control were quietly consolidated in the American Southwest.

In the present day, Elena Baca is living in Texas when her fiancé is killed under circumstances that remain unresolved. In the aftermath, her brother John comes to stay with her, unaware that Elena has long carried a dangerous family truth: their grandfather Carmilo was once known as Snake Eyes, an enforcer recruited as a child into the same system that made the Fountain murders possible.

After their father’s death, Elena finally shares what was hidden for decades. Together, the siblings uncover materials concealed in their father’s gun safe—an encoded map and a handkerchief marked with the initials A.J.F. When John deciphers the map and follows it to a remote desert location known as the Wash, he is shot and left for dead by a man determined to keep the past buried.

John survives, but the message is clear: the violence Elena believed contained is still being enforced. As threats escalate, she must decide whether silence can still protect those she loves—or whether survival now requires confronting the legacy her family served.

The Devil Went Quiet is a novel about moral inheritance and consequence, set in a landscape where disappearance has long been a method, and silence a form of currency.