Kissing Arizona (Sarah Burke Mysteries, 3) - Softcover

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.

Feisty Tucson cop Sarah Burke is back in another outing that’s as much a commentary on modern social issues as it is a crime story. While Sarah is juggling three hot cases—a drug bust gone wrong, the murder-suicide of a local couple, and the discovery of a box of human remains—she also struggles with her home life, what with her adopted niece needing a room of her own, Sarah’s mother suffering a stroke, and boyfriend Will Dietz urging Sarah to move in with him. Mixing the multifaceted plot lines with reflections on illegal immigrants, prostitution, blended families, work-life balance, working mothers, and the effects of the economic recession, Gunn somehow manages it all with panache. Fans of Muller’s Sharon McCone, Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone, and Paretsky’s V. I. Warshawski will want to add Gunn’s Sarah Burke to their list of female sleuths to follow. --Emily Melton