Regional book reviews
hole in a closet ceiling. The man had lived in a coffin-size attic for nine months, and had murdered the homeowner, who had caught him stealing food. After viewing the killer’s hiding place, a newspaper photographer dubbed him the Spiderman. means delving into railroad camps and hobo jungles as well as well as the world of Neo-Nazis.
“Blood on the Tracks” is a raw story of love and hate and betrayal, of brutality and lost souls. It is a first-class read. isn’t any too safe, either. Gemma Monroe is a detective in the fictional mountain town of Cedar Valley, Colo., who is six months’ pregnant. She’s been assigned to find the killer of a circus clown.
Turns out the dead man is the son of Cedar Valley’s mayor, a boy whose disappearance several years before was declared a deadly accident. Now the family must grieve all over again, while Gemma and her partners solve the murder.
Too many things about the death don’t seem right. Gemma can’t help thinking the killing might be connected with the disappearance of two boys 30 years before. Only four years earlier, Gemma herself discovered their bodies buried in a forest. And then there’s the unsolved case of the body of a young woman killed about the time the boys disappeared.
Gemma has her own problems, including an incompetent partner and a unfaithful boyfriend, the father of her baby.
“Inherit the Bones” is another debut novel, and it’s likely Gemma, baby in tow, will return to solve more mysteries.