Charlene Weir

First Line: Definite disadvantages to being chief of police, Dan Wren thought as he headed the pickup along the graveled, hilly road past tree-dotted fields with barbed wire fences.

Thirtysomething San Francisco police officer Susan Donovan meets the man of her dreams at a conference. Within six weeks, she's married, she's moved to northeastern Kansas with her police chief husband, Dan Wren... and she's a widow. Susan gets herself appointed temporary chief of police and vows to find her show more husband's killer. When another person dies, the mayor wants her gone, but Susan manages to get a five-day reprieve. Will she find the killer before time runs out?

Mysteries set in Kansas are not common, and Weir skillfully guides us through a Great Plains winter, the vagaries of the multi-million-dollar bull sperm business, and a search for a toxic waste dump. All that was interesting and the pace moved right along. What didn't work for me was the main character. It wasn't until the end of the book that I ever felt that Susan had been a police officer on the San Francisco police force. She didn't use her brain; she let her rage and grief take command and lead her into numerous dangerous situations. I tried to take it easy on her, allowing her time to grieve, but sooner or later when a character keeps behaving like the blonde bimbo in a slasher movie, I'm going to hold the basement door open for her the next time there's a weird noise down there.

To sum it up: fine setting, good pace, and the murderer was not easy to spot; however, the main character got on my last nerve. Toto, I took the first plane out of Kansas. show less

I've been doing a project to read a mystery by an author new to me from every state in the Union. Since I'd already read lots of [a:Nancy Pickard|49538|Nancy Pickard|http://www.goodreads.com/images/nophoto/nophoto-U-50x66.jpg]'s books, I couldn't "count" [b:The Virgin of Small Plains|180648|The Virgin of Small Plains A Novel of Suspense|Nancy Pickard|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172493157s/180648.jpg|1076272] for my Kansas book. So I chose [a:Charlene Weir|364430|Charlene show more Weir|http://www.goodreads.com/images/nophoto/nophoto-U-50x66.jpg]'s first Susan Wren novel, and I'll definitely be looking for more.

The book opens with a Kansas police chief investigating -- what? We aren't sure, and then he is murdered. We then learn that he's only been back from his honeymoon for 10 days, and that his new wife is a former San Francisco detective whom he swept off her feet at a police conference. She's already enduring culture shock living in a small city in Kansas (I'd say small town, but it's evidently bigger than Small Plains in Pickard's book). Now her parents want her to come back to San Francisco, her sister-in-law is pressuring her to sell the half of the family farm she's just inherited, and the mayor asks her to be interim police chief -- and find her husband's killer. She plunges into the job and soon finds that she's dealing with a lot of stuff she never saw in SF -- pigs on the loose and giant bulls among them -- but also that greed, drug dealing, and general criminality exist just as much in small towns in Kansas as in big city California. Welcome touches of humor enliven what might otherwise be a too-grim story.

Occasionally in this book, Susan Wren is guilty of actions which some might term "too stupid to live," but her state of grief and a prickly relationship with one of her detectives, in addition to issues with her father, a high-powered attorney, go a long way to explain them. There are great characters in this book, such as Sophie the cat lady and Susan herself. It's a very good first novel, gives a fine picture of the land, economy and people of Kansas, and I look forward to reading more of the series. show less

Susan Donovan meets Dan Wren at a law enforcement convention in San Francisco. After a whirlwind courtship they marry, honeymoon and go to his town of Hampstead, KS, where he is Police Chief. But 10 days later Dan is murdered and Susan agrees to take on his job and find his killer. So not only is she facing a new job, dealing with a staff that doesn't know her, and learning about the town and its inhabitants, but also looking to solve this crime. She definitely has some missteps at the show more beginning and has a single focus that needs to broaden, but she is dealing with grief. She did some foolish things by not relying on her staff, but I felt she had grown by the end of the book. Will definitely look for more. show less

2nd in the series, this is a fun series, big town cop marries small town cop and moves to Kansas. After losing her husband she takes his job, solves his murder and instead of heading back to San Francisco she stays and continues to do his former job. This book involves the murder of a young girl who seems to have a lot of secrets. When a local educator at the college also goes missing things get complicated. This is a complicated mystery with a cast of characters but all are well drawn and show more the suspense is built to the breaking point. I'll be reading the next in this series. show less