This is the third in the series of Claire Reynier mysteries. It starts with the apparent death of an old sorority sister of Claire’s in Santa Fe. As the story develops, it turns out that Evelyn, the old friend, had visited four of her old “sisters” in turn, spinning them stories and stealing their identities and something they valued as well. Thus the four “sisters” become the primary suspects. Claire is the one without an alibi, and so it falls to her t do her own investigation. As she is the book lover / rare book curator for the University of New Mexico, it s no surprise that the object stolen from her is in fact a rare book, in this case a signed Herman Melville book. And it turns out that her grumpy boss is interested in said book for his collection, which leads to an interesting side-story.But I digress…. Claire works out what really happened (no spoiler here) and exonerates herself. Did I like it? Yes, it was better than the first one in the series. Was it great? Not so much. Maybe I read it too quickly to understand the discussions on identity theft, and how it makes you feel, but I didn’t see that aspect of the book. I did see a certain amount of regret at the destruction of Arizona’s and New Mexico’s environment as more and more people move to the South West, something echoed in other Southwestern fiction. It was a good page-turner for a quite day in autumn.
