Bone Walker, An Anasazi Novel

This was an unusual choice for me. I picked it up thinking it might be a mystery similar to a Tony Hillerman novel. Actually it is two separate storylines, one set in ancient times and the other in present day New Mexico. They play out over the same area, converging and parting, advancing to a combustion of both times and characters.

The authors, Kathleen O'Neal Gear and W. Michael Gear are anthropologists and archeologists, and their expertise is what makes this book work, also what made it interesting to me. There are witches in the story, and modern people as well as Anasazi who believe in the witches' powers. There are characters who admire the Indian culture and customs and others who only want to prey on them and steal their valued artifacts. And there is a love story, a relationship that builds from friends and colleagues to an emotional tie that won't be broken.

The Anasazi characters are a little difficult to figure out at first, but once the reader gets to know them, their unusual names aren't a problem. Most have names like Rain Crow or White Cone, Indian names such as we are used to hearing. However, the hero is Browser, one of the First People, and the woman who loves him is called Catkin. He is War Chief and she is his best warrior; perhaps explaining why it takes him so long to realize he loves her. I was drawn also to the relationship between Browser's old uncle and a strange, abused female child he befriends. He calls the child Bone Walker, discovering only at the end that her real name is Piper.

The modern hero is Dusty Stewart and his childhood abandonment by his parents figures largely in the story. His love interest is Dr. Maureen Cole who has been called in from Canada to help in a dig. The first murder victim happens to be the man who raised Dusty, someone everyone (except the murderer of course) loved. Both stories are engrossing and held my interest even though this is a large book and includes detailed description of this part of New Mexico.

I didn't realize until I finished the book that it is the third in a series, but I don't believe that had any effect at all upon my enjoyment of the book. I recommend this older book from 2001, especially to readers who like me love to learn about Indian culture and are fascinated by archeology. The wonderful characters are just the icing on a delicious cake.

A New Meg Gardiner Mystery

The Memory Collector (Jo Beckett)

This was one of the mysteries in the boxes of books given to me recently. I'm finally free to dig into the boxes and enjoy, for a while anyway. I read it quickly; it's that kind of book. Just hold on and enjoy the ride.

Forensic psychiatrist Jo Beckett is the hero (heroine?) of this mad chase from South Africa to San Francisco. It takes a bit of stretching to let your mind believe for the duration that a company has invented a product called "Slick" that has gone terribly wrong. It enters the blood stream, heads to the brain, and destroys memory from that time forward. Ian Kanan has been infected and from that moment on can only remember things for about five minutes. Stop a minute and think about that.

He remembers perfectly everything that happens up until then so all of his special forces and sniper skills are intact. Trouble is, he can contaminate anyone he comes into contact with. What a setup, huh? Add to that the kidnapping of his wife and son and you have a real thriller.

No spoilers here. I can't say much more about the story. What I can say is that Gardiner writes well enough to pull me in even though the premise of the story made me laugh at first. The panic, the danger, the idea of what could happen did get to me and I read the last third of the book in a sort of tense anticipation, wondering how it would end.

I think I had read a review of this book somewhere some time ago but can't remember where - and no, I'm not contaminated with "Slick." :)

The Memory Collector is available from Amazon. I am an Amazon Associate.

HARDBALL by Sara Paretsky

I think I mentioned that friends brought me a couple boxes of books, and then they brought a third box. With friends like that I'm a lucky lady. I'm reading an 800+ page American history of the first half of the 19th century at the moment, so occasionally I take a break from it to read something like a mystery. I had just the thing in mind this time, a new-to-me Sara Paretsky novel in the V. I. Warshawski series was in one of those boxes.

I love Paretsky's books, this series in particular. V. I. is a Chicago private eye, born in Back of the Yards (the neighborhood by the stockyards) and brought up on the south side near the old White Sox stadium. Since I dearly love Chicago and know my way around enough to picture some of the scenes, I feel right at home. She includes my Chicago Cubs as well as the Sox, the lake, the parks, Univ. of Chicago, everything I can easily visualize.

V. I. Warshawski introduced me to female private eyes back when I first started reading mystery novels. I've mentioned previously that I had a book review column in the suburbs of Chicago at the time and I was always on the lookout for a local connection. When I read my first Warshawski book, I was hooked. She isn't super brilliant or anything else super; she seems like a real human being. Her father was a cop, a good cop that everyone admired, and the case in HARDBALL is a difficult one for her because it involves her father and something dirty he may have been privy to.

Her support comes from an elderly neighbor, her two dogs which they pretty much share, a reporter she respects, and a woman who is a doctor and loves her like a daughter. All of those characters, even the dogs, ring true.

The case involves Chicago politics (always a somewhat iffy situation), a campaign for office (ditto), baseball, activist nuns, a gang whose leader she visits in Stateville (hard core prison in Joliet whose warden decades ago was a distant relative of mine), the 1966 visit to Chicago by Martin Luther King - obviously it's very complicated. I have spent the past day and a half trying without success to put the book down and do something constructive.

This is a 446 page book but it really had me enthralled. Some years ago a movie, or TV movie - can't remember which - was made of a V.I. mystery and I thought it was awful. If that's your only memory of her, please ignore it and try one of the books. I sound like a cereal commercial, "Try it, you'll like it," but really if you like human characters and a P.I. who actually gets frightened when she's in danger, this is for you.

I've Been Reading

While sitting in various waiting rooms this past week, I read a mystery by an author new to me. The book was so good I'll be looking for more books by her. This was another book sale find.

Although I like going to the library, I love to support them by going to book sales. Our library is a county library which has suffered budget cuts of drastic size, unfortunately a common problem in this country, and therefore remains in an inadequate space with an inadequate amount of funds or space for new books. So I take advantage of their annual book sale to try new authors. If I don't like the book, I haven't lost much and anyway I'm contributing to a cause that means a lot to me. We're currently fundraising for a new building so the county historical society can take over all of the current historical building on the green.

INDELIBLE by Karin Slaughter was a lucky find. The book starts out with a bang - literally. Two well-armed young men shoot up the police station in a small town, killing several people and injuring others. At the time, one young patrolman happens to be giving a group of small children a tour. The chief is shot and his pediatrician wife is there but not allowed to treat him. As the scene turns into a settled hostage situation, we are taken in a series of flashbacks to the beginning of this couple's story. Meanwhile, the reader is a hostage as well since Slaughter makes sure you'll read the whole book to find out how the situation ends. If you don't read the flashbacks, you won't understand what has happened and is about to happen in the police station. Don't skim or you'll regret it.

I was on the edge of my chair through most of the book. There were so many twists, fascinating characters, and small town grudges and misperceptions involved that I was taken by surprise several times. The story involves an exaggeration of a truth of small towns. Small town people might not agree with me, but I've seen it happen. People are judged not as much by their own character and actions, but more so by their family history. If you have a drunk or a violent person in your family, people don't expect much different from you. And if your family is poor, people don't expect you to make much of yourself. That dynamic is at work in this story to the nth degree.

I will certainly read more of Karin Slaughter's books, I guarantee it.