New Mexico is the setting for this thriller, a police
procedural in which almost all the characters work in law
enforcement. Unlike most crime tales the police themselves
are the targets of violent crime and have to figure out who
is shooting at them and why.
Paul Grayhorse is a PI with an injured shoulder from his
police days, and he is working a domestic abuse case when
the female client doesn't show up and someone fires at him
instead. He calls his brothers for backup and their police
status helps summon US Marshal Kendra Armstrong to the
case. Paul, from a Navaho family, wears a carved lynx
totem and he meets a wild lynx when hosting Kendra in a
canyon cabin. The marshal is searching for a vicious
fugitive named Miller suspected of shooting a judge and a
policewoman, Paul's former partner. Paul uses his local
sources of information including street girls, but the
reader just knows that the addict girl who saw Miller is
going to wind up dead. Similarly, no matter how many times
someone shoots at Paul and Kendra, or drives straight at
them, they get taken by surprise.
Kendra figures out that so few people know her movements,
it must mean a leak in her office or that of the local
police, and by a process of elimination they work out who
it might be, though the motive is still unclear. A trap
must be set, and far from calling for aid from the FBI or a
SWAT team, they decide to tell as few people as possible,
mainly just Paul's brothers.
SECRETS OF THE LYNX did not engage me as much as Aimee
Thurlo's many other excellent Southwest works, mainly
because the total concentration on police officers made for
a less rounded story than usual. The jargon and mechanisms
of police work, such as photographing a suspect's finger on
a phone and sending the print to a databank, are no doubt
accurate but by themselves they do not carry a story. The
two principal characters form a believable relationship,
but I doubted that under the stress of potential
assassination they would suddenly relax and start chatting
about whether to adopt a foreign baby. The landscape
Thurlo knows so well is an integral part of the story
however and her many followers will doubtless want to add
this to their collection. The novel could also help to
introduce romance readers to Thurlo's crime writings.
For P.I. Paul Grayhorse, there were no secrets—thanks to
his special Navajo gift. He knew why U.S. Deputy Marshal
Kendra Armstrong found him in the canyons of New Mexico.
Reopening the case that ended his marshal career and
killed his partner did more than haunt Paul; it put him in
the crosshairs.Using Paul to flush out her fugitive was
risky, but teaming with him was downright dangerous. In
his arms, Kendra felt like a woman, with a woman's
desires. But with his powers, could she hide her biggest
secret—that she'd fallen for him? And that for the first
time in her career, she was afraid…afraid to live without
him if she couldn't get her man?
© 2003-2024 off-the-edge.net
all rights reserved Privacy Policy