Blood Country

After her husband's death in a hit-and-run accident, policewoman Claire Watkins and her 10-year-old daughter, Meg, move from the Twin Cities to small town Wisconsin, where Claire finds work as a sheriff's deputy. As spring progresses, Claire looks forward to learning gardening wisdom from her elderly neighbor, Landers Anderson. Unfortunately, Landers dies under suspicious circumstances before the gardening lessons begin. Claire brings experience in murder investigation to a rural community where murder is rare, so she takes the lead in the investigation of Landers' death. Meanwhile, Meg finally confides to her mother that she saw the man who ran down her father in their driveway. As this cold case begins to heat up again, Claire finds show more that Fort St. Antoine isn't the safe haven she thought it was.

Cozy mystery meets police procedural in this series debut. Two unrelated investigations are a bit too much for such a short novel. It was easy to see where both stories were heading since there wasn't enough page space for red herrings. However, having read a few series where the author drags a back story like Claire's husband's death over several books, it's a nice change to have it wrapped up to start with. Claire makes an interesting protagonist in a different setting and I'd like to see where the author takes her character in future books in the series. show less

Former Minneapolis police officer has taken a job as deputy sheriff in Pepin County, Wisconsin after her husband was killed. Her daughter had seen the killer, but she did not discover that until after her daughter found the next-door neighbor dead. Suspecting her husband's killer was involved in drug trafficking, she knows she must be diligent in protecting her daughter. Unfortunately the person who committed the crime as well as the "plot twist" (in order not to create a spoiler) are so obvious, that it almost wasn't worth reading to the end. The crime involving the neighbor's death was a little better although it didn't take much to come up with the killer for that one as well. While it's not a terrible mystery, it's just one that is show more too obvious. There is also mild profanity, which could have been omitted in my opinion. I also spotted a couple of proofreading lapses on the part of the publishing company. show less