Judith Van Gieson (1941–2021)

A cosy mystery set in New Mexico. The heroine is a librarian at UNM, and the precipitation incidents are the death of a friend leaving his library collection to UNM, and the theft of a box of those books. There is a lot of local color for Albuquerque and Santa Fe that puts the reader into the location. There was a little bit of misdirection, and the characters were nice. A quick read.

My first dive into a Van Gieson novel. The premise is certainly interesting. But, I'm not sure if Van Gieson delivered or not. The character, Claire Reynier is an expert of rare books and currently in charge of a missing writer's current collection in New Mexico. She becomes entangled in the cold case when new information and a new manuscript of the writer show's up after literary fellow finds it on a hike in the Utah canyon's where the infamous missing writer disappeared 20 years ago. I'm show more not sure if I like the character enough to enjoy an entire series, so I will have to read another one in the series to see if it enthralls me. I do enjoy the descriptive narrative of the Southwest which is not overdone. show less

It’s pretty clear that Judith Van Gieson knows and loves the state of New Mexico. Claire Reynier, in her fifth appearance, travels through northern New Mexico and her own memories as she tries to learn the identity of a homeless woman found dead in the basement of the UNM library.

Published in paperback by Signet.

I was interested in this because of the plot which involved finding evidence of conversos ancestors in New Mexico. Archivist, Claire Reynier is contacted by a young woman, Isabel Santos who found a faded document wrapped in a cross by accident buried beneath her house which Claire believes is a document written byJoaquin, who is killed by the Inquisition in which he declares his faith in one go. Isabel is found dead and Claire does not believe that she was killed by
someone who robbed her show more for drug money. Uneven writing, don't intend to read more by author but interesting info about New Mexico scen show less