Only Flesh and Bones (Em Hansen Mysteries)

Oil geologist and reluctant crime solver Em Hansen is one of the most interesting characters in recent mystery fiction--a strong woman with believable weaknesses and none of the smugness or coyness that bog down heroines of other, better-selling series. At the start of her fourth book, Sarah Andrews has Em helping her distant mother deliver a calf on the family ranch in Wyoming and wondering about her career choices: "If I hadn't found my own way to the edge, life might have been quite different for me. I might have had what it took to stay on my parents' ranch, or found myself married up to a neighboring spread, instead of heading off into these other lives of mine...." Luckily for us, Em's other lives--chronicled so sharply in A Fall in Denver, Tensleep, and Mother Nature--all available in paperback--make for rewarding reading. The latest book begins with an offer from a patronizing ex-boss to help the unemployed Em find a job--if she will try to discover why his 16-year-old daughter, Cecilia, is having such a hard time getting over the suspicious death of her mother. Em has to dig deeply into Cecilia's repressed memory and the dead woman's heartbreaking journals before some glimpse of the truth is revealed--and her search is suspenseful, poignant, and surprisingly sensual. --Dick Adler