Penny Rudolph, Thicker Than Blood - In Los Angeles, Rachel Chavez lives in the parking garage that she owns across the street from her best customer, the Interurban Water District. Rachel knows how important it is to keep the management of Interurban happy with her service; for instance she changed the flat tire on the vehicle of General Manager Jason Karl and has allowed late-working water engineer Hank Sullivan a few extra minutes past lock up.

Rachel notices that one of the Interurban cars parked in her garage has a bad scratch, a busted fender, and what appears to be blood on it. Not long afterward, Rachel hears on the news that Jason died in a hit and run accident. She wonders if she has the murder vehicle parked inside her facility. Fearing to tell the cops as she is a former addict and drunk convict, she is encouraged by a cleaning crew manager and an environmentalist who rescues her from a mugger. She begins to wonder if Hank, who she likes, killed his boss over a water dispute.

Though Rachel illogically does not seem streetwise, readers will take immense delight in the latest Southern California water war mystery. The storyline is character driven by the heroine's conscience as Rachel ponders the ethical question of telling the authorities, knowing that means trouble for her. Interestingly, and what makes the novel, she does not turn into super amateur sleuth, but instead is dragged along the way and learns the truth when the culprit decides to cleanse her. Readers will compare positively Rachel with Jake Gittes (see CHINATOWN and THE TWO JAKES) in this twenty-first century tale in which water is becoming more like oil.

Poisoned Pen, Jun 2005, $24.95, 310 pp.
ISBN: 1590581482

Harriet Klausner