MARLENE SATTER - MOSTLY MYSTERY REVIEWS

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	Marlene Satter is one of FMAM's fiction editors. Making sure copy is in the best possible shape before it sees print has been her job and her mission for years; doing so for FMAM's fine writers is a pleasure.  So is reviewing books to let folks know about all the "good stuff" that's available.

NEXT OF KIN
Ami Elizabeth Reeves
Avalon Books, August 2005, $, 172 pp.
ISBN: 0-8034-9729-6

Sally Brown has run away from her abusive mother in Texas, seeking sanctuary at her older sister's home in Delight, Arkansas, in a van stolen - well, borrowed - from her friend Fish McMorty. Sally is running in more ways than one; she's a track star who has real ambitions, and if she can't get away from her mother she can't possibly follow her dreams and go to college on a track scholarship.

Delight has its own problems, though, and so does Suzanne Sayre, Sally's big sister, heir to the Sayre chicken fortune, and wife of Mug Holden. Suzanne's pregnant and having panic attacks. Mug is getting in deeper and deeper with a building project that's not going at all the way he planned. And as the town prepares for its big chicken cookoff, Johnny Third (that would be Johnny Gant the third) is agonizing over his butter sculpture and Battle Jonley, former Delight beauty queen-turned-banker, is worrying about something a bit more upscale - the takeover of the local bank by her employer. And don't forget R. D. Blackwell, chicken restaurateur and mayoral hopeful of Delight, his steps dogged these days by his new bodyguard - Honey Dillon, a large woman with impressive defensive skills, hidden talents, and a secret to keep.

Into this mix steps - er, drives - Bobbie Lou Voight, gossip columnist extraordinaire. Bobbie Lou likes to know things about people; she finds those little tidbits of information both useful and profitable. Just now, she's zeroed in on Battle, her chief competitor in their pageant days, and is scouting around for more leads. Until, that is, she's found dead just as the cookoff is well underway.

Reeves has expertly captured the flavor of small-town Arkansas with her characters, descriptions, and plotting. The importance of the pageant circuit, the prominence of cook-offs, and the prevalence of back-room and handshake deals are all vital elements in this witty and clever book. Family secrets, gossip, and old love affairs gone bad vie with the struggle of good over evil as Sally tries to find out what skeletons lie hidden in her own family's closet and as Bobbie Lou Voight's killer seems prepared to strike again. Readers will enjoy this trip to the country, and look forward to their next visit.

Marlene Satter

RIDE A DANCING HORSE
Eileen Watkins
Amber Quill Press, 2004, $15.00, 176 pp.
ISBN: 1-59279-844-6

Kelly Sheridan abandons a successful career in public relations and instead takes a job as an assistant horse trainer - in dressage. She knows the work will be tough, but she isn't prepared to return to her old life, nor has she told her new boss about it. But she hasn't counted on the personal attraction she feels for her new employer - nor on the recurring, and escalating, acts of sabotage at his ranch. When to her horror she finds herself the most likely suspect, she has to act, or risk losing everything.

Diego Villaneuva, still mourning the death of his wife the year before, hires Kelly against his better judgment. Not only does he feel he made an unwise decision while feeling vulnerable on the anniversary of Isabella's death, but he wonders about her "friend" who shows up just before a fire breaks out in one of his barns. And to top it off, business has been bad for some time; he questions whether he should be taking on additional staff at all, or simply throwing in the towel and selling out - either to his rival, Don Carlos, or to the owner of Rio Dorado, the new resort next to his acreage.

Against the backdrop of dancing Andalusian horses, Kelly and Diego must work together to find the person responsible for attempts to destroy everything that Diego has worked for. Poisoned hay, dying horses, and burning barns are just the beginning, as they seek the truth behind the devastation - Kelly to prove her innocence, Diego to save his life's work. In the process, they find that Isabella's death may not have been an accident after all - and that, just as they have found each other, they may become victims themselves.

Readers will find this book a delight to read - particularly those who love horses and the intricate world of the dancing Andalusian. They will be eager to watch Kelly and Diego follow the steps in their own dance as little by little, the two discover more about each other's background and learn to trust what they find. Romantic suspense builds amid plenty of sparks as Kelly struggles to overcome not only Diego's resistance to her PR methods and his suspicions of her business acquaintances, but also a very determined rival for his affections. The writing is intelligent, the characters believable, and the background and landscape full of local color and wonderful details about horsemanship and dressage.

Can Kelly and Diego overcome their very different backgrounds and Diego's unseen enemies long enough to allow their romance to flourish? Readers will enjoy every step of the dance as they find out.

Marlene Satter

THE DEADLY TOOLS OF IGNORANCE
Robert Elias
Rounder Books, April 2005, 288 pages
ISBN: 157940104X

Debs Kafka is first and foremost a baseball fan and sometime philosopher; in his view, baseball may perhaps be a purer form of religion, capable of bringing out the best in a person. Although conscientious, Debs doesn't quite bring the same amount of devotion to his day job, that of Ph.D. candidate, and graduate assistant teacher of criminology at Fairmount University. His philosophical bent, in fact, has him questioning whether criminology or even academe is really where he belongs; in college he'd played serious ball, and for a while he'd hoped to turn pro. Now all he does is concoct fantasy baseball teams in his mind, pitting the greats of days gone by against one another.

But all thoughts of baseball are forced temporarily from his mind when he discovers the body of Father Tom Licente, a criminology professor at Fairmount who has been murdered in Grand Cathedral. Licente, a believer in tough love whose work in prisons and at the University has changed lives, is found strangled - and while at first there's no hint of who might have wanted to kill him, Debs encounters person after person with a motive - after the police have already made an arrest. He's also got other troubles: Frank Parsons, who killed his best friend in college, has escaped from prison - and may be after him and his girl friend, Nicole. Throw in the fact that someone wants him to believe that Nicole is cheating on him, and Debs is finding everyday life just a little tough.

Until he finds himself trying out for a minor league baseball team thanks to Coach Ray Lesko, after helping out at batting practice with the college team.

Debs does care about his class and his work in criminology, and feels very strongly that Tyrone Little, the man arrested for Licente's murder, is innocent. He does his best to find other evidence and suspects, but the police and even Little's attorney aren't really interested - the former because they believe they have the killer, and the latter because she's trying to get the best outcome for her client in a system stacked against him. Debs is also questioning the efficacy of his teaching; he's looking forward to the end of the semester and he wonders whether his students are really getting much out of his class. So in an attempt to right two wrongs at once, he offers them the chance to do a little sleuthing and learn firsthand about the inner workings of the justice system by trying to find something that will help Little.

Baseball, however, will not be denied, and takes up more and more of Debs's time even as it seems to bring him back to the case from a different angle: one of his teammates is being threatened, and it may be by the same person who killed Licente. The book's title, in fact, refers to the various forms of protection that a catcher wears - equipment that plays a part in solving the crime.

Murder, baseball, philosophy, and criminology blend in Elias's book for a wonderful summer read. Baseball fans in particular will enjoy the play-by-play of Debs's games, while mystery fans will enjoy the participation of Debs's students in some amateur sleuthing. This is a thinking person's mystery, but it isn't perfect; Debs explains too much, rather than showing the action, particularly in the end where all the ends are tied up neatly, and much of the action that does happen takes place offstage (the students' efforts, for instance). Debs thinks a lot; sometimes, perhaps, a bit too much as he advances one theory after another about who killed Licente and why.

But Elias is a fine writer, and his skilled combination of unlikely elements makes for an enjoyable mystery.

Marlene Satter

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