New 06.25.05

Nancy came through again when she visited the library. That time she brought back J. A. Jance's newest mystery, Exit Wounds. I've ready other Jance novels at the lake and found them to be good summer reading. They're small enough to hold while sitting in a comfortable chair on the deck and easy to look up from when an eagle or a hummingbird flies by. This one was like that too. It's an intriguing plot of banal evil with a side story of local politics (Arizona sheriffs have to be reelected too). There's a bit of personal family life and some Arizona scenery. Jance is not Tony Hillerman, but her books are usually better than Sarah Andrews (except perhaps for Tensleep and Earth Colors). A distinctive clue in the murders in this book are shell casings from a batch bullets handed out to a mining company's private security force to help break a strike in 1917. That makes an interesting sidelight, but it's actually a red herring. (Isn't English wonderful? I get to turn bullets into fish in two intelligible sentences.) Good story telling; good escapist fiction. You might even like it in winter.

• A review of Exit Wounds at Mostly Fiction
• BooksForABuck.com review