“Residue,” “Everything She Didn’t Say” and more

“Residue” by Michael

Mcgarrity (Norton). Ina dozen other Michael McGarrity mysteries, Kevin Kerney has solved some tough crimes, often at peril to himself. But nothing has threatened him as much as an unsolved murder in “Residue.”

That’s because Kerney himself is the primary suspect.

Kerney, retired Santa Fe sheriff, is attending a retirement party for his army wife, Sara Brannan, when he’s arrested for a decades-old murder. The body of Kim Ward, Kevin’s college sweetheart, has been found with a bullet hole through her skull. An investigation uncovers damaging information. Among other things, Kerney was the last to see Kim alive, and she was buried with a gun that belonged to Kerney.

What’s more, the investigation is led by Clayton Istee, a cop who Kerney discovered a few books back was a son he didn’t know he had. Clayton’s always blamed Kerney for abandoning his mother, although Kerney had no idea she was pregnant. Instead of recusing himself, Istee plows forward in an attempt to find the truth about the murder.

Forced out of a job for unethical behavior, Istee now joins forces with Kerney and Sara to solve the crime.

“Residue” is a complicated and intriguing mystery that involves an intertwined cast of characters. They include Kim’s mother and husband and a drug enforcement official long thought dead. Of course, the police believe Kerney is guilty and are no help. In fact, they thwart Istee’s investigation.

Like Mcgarrity’s other books, “Residue” is set in New Mexico, and descriptions of the land and people add to its appeal. “Her Kind of Case” by Jeanne Winer (Bancroft Press). Boulder defense lawyer Lee Isaacs is about to turn 60. She lost her last big case and wonders if time has caught up with her and she’s lost her edge. Maybe she should quit and climb the Himalayas, she thinks.

Then she’s asked to defend Jeremy, a skinhead charged with stomping to death a gay man. Jeremy is young, just 17, and refuses to talk to her. He doesn’t want her help. He’s already confessed, and three of his buddies have pleaded guilty and agreed to testify against him. Isaacs’ gut tells her it’s all but hopeless. This is just her kind of case, and she takes it on.

Set in Boulder, “Her Kind of Case” is a witty, well-crafted novel, a cut above most legal tomes. That’s because the author, Jeanne Winer, is a retired Colorado criminal defense attorney who, like her character, Isaacs, is a martial arts expert. This is Winer’s second novel, and it won’t be her last.

Isaacs is a tough, focused attorney with a sense of humor — the author’s humor, actually — that makes the book a joy to read. The dialogue is crisp and pointed and unbelievably funny at times. The supporting characters — a female investigator on the lookout for a man, a disgraced attorney who acts as Isaacs’ second, and her best friends, a gay couple — give the book diversity.

The story is more serious. Jeremy, it turns out, is a closet gay whose father is a religious bigot. Despite the confession, Jeremy claims he is innocent. Isaacs, who has defended murderers, rapists and clients accused of a variety of heinous crimes, generally doesn’t concern herself over whether they are actually guilty. Jeremy is different, and Isaacs be- in him.

Still, with all that evidence against her client, along with a zealous prosecutor, she knows defending him is a crap shoot. The question is whether she is too old and tired to give Jeremy the defense he needs.

“Lost Lake” by Emily Littlejohn (Minotaur

Books). In the third book in her series about Cedar Valley detective Gemma Monroe, author Emily Littlejohn spins a tale of homicide against a backdrop of legend and ghost tales.

Gemma is sent to Colorado’s Lost Lake, where three campers report a fourth, a young woman named Sari, is missing. Nine of 10 missing persons eventually show up, Gemma tells Sari’s friends. She files the necessary paperwork but puts the case aside when the director of the local historical museum is found dead. Coincidentally, the woman was Sari’s boss. And to complicate things, a rare diary, the jewel of the museum’s collection, has been stolen.

Gemma and her partner, Finn, set out to determine if the three cases are intertwined or merely a coincidence. The two have an uneasy relationship. At the same time she is investigating the murders, Gemma is acting undercover at her chief’s request to find out who has been giving confidential information to a local reporter. Gemma suspects Finn.

There is another complication: Gemma’s daughter, Grace, who is just six months old. Child care and lack of sleep along with working-mother guilt plague Gemma. Her fiancé, Brody, helps out, but he works, too, and is suddenly sent to China for his job. China is just a little too close to Japan and a woman Brody had an affair with. So Gemma, who is reluctant to tie the knot, has trust issues.

Littlejohn, a local author and librarian, is an excellent writer. The story gets a little spacey when Gemma tries to make a connection between the murders and a legend about the curse of the diary that is supposed to bring death at Lost Lake every 60 years. Still it’s a good mystery that few readers will figure out before the last pages. “Everything She Didn’t Say” by Jane Kirkpatrick (Revell). Carrie Strahorn is known to Western history for her 1911 memoir “Fifteen Thousand Miles by Stage.” In it, she tells of her adventures traveling throughout the West with her husband, Robert, a railroad travel writer and promoter.

Jane Kirkpatrick, the best-selling author of more than 20 novels based on the lives of real women, reads between the lines of Strahorn’s book and sees a woman whose life is not so fulfilling. “Everything She Didn’t Say” tells of a woman who follows her huslieves band from adventure to adventure but at heart, yeans for a family and a home.

In a way, it’s hard to feel sorry for Strahorn, whose life was far more exciting than those of other Victorian women. After all, her husband made a pile of money, and she lived in an enormous mansion in the Northwest. She loved her husband, but she longed to be a real partner in his ventures. Instead of confiding in his wife and including her in decisionmaking, Robert blindsides her. His tendency to plunge into town promotions leaves them on the verge of bankruptcy several times, and they even have to flee in the middle of the night after one of their schemes goes bust.

Kirkpatrick is a master at portraying the emotions of women in a pre-feminist era. Strahorn, like Kirkpatrick’s other heroines, is torn between the role society thrusts upon her and the desire to be her own person. With compassion and humor, Kirkpatrick recreates an era in which women chafe under the controls of men but have little alternative. In real life, Carrie Strahorn may have kept her feelings to herself, but in “Everything She Didn’t Say,” Kirkpatrick has plenty to say for her.