Cool in Tucson (Sarah Burke) - Hardcover

A one-time innkeeper with a taste for adventure, Elizabeth Gunn has been a private pilot, a sky diver, a SCUBA diver, and a liveabord sailor. Extensive travel in the US, Canada, Mexico, and Europe led to a second career as a freelance travel writer, during which she also began writing a series of police procedural mysteries set in southeast Minnesota, where she grew up. Her books contrast the sometimes gritty routine of police work with the idyllic rural scenes around a mid-sized city in the midwest.

Building on the success of her popular Jake Hines mysteries, Gunn offers a new series, this one featuring Tucson police detective Sarah Burke. Smart, ambitious Sarah has progressed up the ranks to detective grade, with her eye firmly on her boss’ job. But right now, she has to crack one very nasty murder case—the stabbing death of a dealer associated with one of Tucson’s deadliest drug lords. As she digs deeper, Sarah realizes there’s something decidedly odd about the dead man—unlike most dealers, he was a clean-living guy who didn’t drink or use drugs. As Sarah tries to find the killer, she deals with troubling personal issues (always a good way to provide backstory): an alcoholic sister, a neglected niece, and her own bitter divorce. But these pale when the niece is kidnapped, and Sarah determines that it’s related to the murder case. Sarah isn’t a particularly groundbreaking heroine, but she fits firmly into the vulnerable-but-tough-minded female-sleuth mold created by Muller, Grafton, and Paretsky; as such, she will appeal to fans of those gold-standard authors. --Emily Melton