Elizabeth Crook, The Night Journal

The Night Journal

Elizabeth Crook

Viking, Feb 2006, $24.95

ISBN: 0670034770

In Austin, thirty-seven year old hospital engineer Meg Mabry detests her grandma, renowned historian Claudia "Bassie" Bass, who raised her with an iron fist and expectations of excellence. Bassie made her reputation when she published her mother's journal of her life as a Harvey Girl in New Mexico. Before she dies, the elderly family matriarch demands her granddaughter reads the six volumes, and accompanies her when she makes a pilgrimage to her birth town in Pecos, New Mexico where the visitor's center plans to dig up Dog Hill where Bassie's mother buried her pets.

Bassie, assisted by archaeologist Jim Layton, and Meg dig up the canine bones with plans to inter them elsewhere. However, among the remains is a human skeleton. Stunned by the mystery, Meg turns to the journals she avoided all her life. There she learns her great-grandmother enjoyed her work and apparently loved a nearby sheepherder, while her spouse never recovered from the massacre of his family in Utah.

THE NIGHT JOURNAL is an interesting romantic mystery supported by fictional historical journal entries. The accounts from 1902 provide an intriguing look at New Mexico struggling with three cultures (American, Native American and Mexican) colliding in contrast to today's society of partial assimilation and some clashing. The storyline includes the "required" romance between Meg and Jim; though that is done in a refreshing manner for this type of novel chick lit style, although it remains unnecessary to the delightful historical comparative analysis investigative tale.