8. At Ease With the Dead - Walter Satterthwaite

Joshua Croft #2
University of New Mexico Press, 1990
paper $9.95
237 pgs.
Rating: 5

A very fine mystery, taking place in Santa Fe, NM; El Paso, TX, and Navajo country, Arizona and New Mexico. Joshua Croft is a private investigator who functioned without cellphones or the internet, since the book was written over 20 years ago. Really well crafted, an interesting suspenseful tale.

Joshua Craft and Rita Mondragon run the Mondragon Investigation Agency together, although Joshua does all the "legwork." Rita's in a wheel chair and never....ever....leaves her house on the side of a mountain overlooking Santa Fe. The story begins with Joshua Meeting a wise old Navajo man named Daniel Begay while camping and fishing in northeastern New Mexico. They bond. And awhile later, Begay comes to him with a 65-year old mystery that is almost all dead ends, since almost everyone that could answer any questions is either dead or in their 80's. But Joshua proceeds, meeting fascinating people in El Paso and seeing first hand the trepidation that Navajos have for non-Navajos.

There's fighting and killing, with a little detail that's uncomfortable, but not enough to stop me from giving this a top-notch rating. I didn't read the first in the series, but I've ordered the second and can't wait to receive it.

74. All the Wrong Moves - Merline Lovelace

A Samantha Spade Mystery
Berkley Prime Crime (paper), 2009
230 pages
Rating: 2

The setting of this book is El Paso and just east of there, with a foray to Tucson and Sahuarita. I love it when the protagonist hits I-10! I enjoyed the setting a lot.

Sam Spade joined the Air Force after her quickie Las Vegas marriage disintegrated and ended up getting a pretty cushy job - the head of a unit that tests all sorts of new inventions/contraptions that people all over the country cook up, possible technology for the government. While trying out a robot (by being strapped inside it), she discovers two corpses in the desert.

There are lots and lots of acronyms here, as well as humor, hormones, and all the things that belong in a "cozy" mystery. Unfortunately, cozy mysteries are not really my cup of tea. The book went fast, but I must admit this isn't my genre and I won't read this author again. Oh well. It was the setting I went after, and I enjoyed that part a lot.