Sarah Andrews Dead Dry

Dead Dry

Sarah Andrews

St. Martin's, Dec 2005, $24.95

ISBN: 0312342527

First her neighbor Fritz Calder comes to get forensic geologist Em Hansen to accompany him for breakfast, when Salt Lake City Police Detective Thomas "Ray" Raymond arrives to have Em look at a nearby corpse. Though the victim is buried under gravel from a collapsed quarry wall with only a leg sticking out. Everyone of the workers has been accounted for, so no one knows who the victim could be and why he was there.

Though the fingerprints are gone and his visage battered beyond recognition, Em recognizes a tattoo that enables her to identify the deceased as Colorado staunch environmentalist Afton McWain. Fritz flies her to Colorado to inform McWain's former spouse and her current female partner, who both deem they earned his ranch, while development vultures circle the battling females coveting McWain's land. All the while Em digs into the dirt to find that trace of evidence that ties a Colorado killer to a Utah homicide.

The tenth Em Hansen, Utah's only forensic geologist, is a terrific who-done-it that keeps the audience following the heroine's delightful scientific explanations of the clues she finds, that no one else understands. Her "romance" with Fritz still sputters, but that adds to the overall fun of observing this consummate professional in the field struggle with affairs of the heart. Though some sidebars are unneeded cul-de-sacs, fans will appreciate Em's latest digging in the dirt gem.

Harriet Klausner