Meredith Mitchell
Archivist Claire Reynier may have a priceless find on her hands. A woman named Isabel Santos has discovered a faded document hidden for hundreds of years under the floor of her family's adobe house. It could be the controversial last words of a Jewish mystic condemned to death by the Inquisition in Mexico City. But before Claire can establish the document's authenticity, it disappears, and tragedy visits the Santos family. As Claire searches for
...Claire Reynier is thrilled when her old friend Burke Lovell donates his collection of valuable books to the university where she works as a librarian. But the morning after she arrives at his ranch in the remote region known as "the Blue" to collect the bequest, Burke is found dead. His daughter Mariah—recently discovered—admits to helping the ailing man commit suicide. Mariah has also been named his principal heir, much to the shock
...3) Ditch Rider
As attorney Neil Hamel settles into her new house in Albuquerque's North Valley, she befriends thirteen-year-old Cheyanne Morales, who lives in a nearby trailer with her mother and her younger half-brother. Cheyanne's teenage angst is complicated by the pressures that gang culture imposes on her and her peers. Neil gets a harrowing glimpse of these pressures when a fifteen-year-old is shot to death not far from Neil's new home. The cops suspect
...4) Hotshots
It is a devastating tragedy: In the South Canyon of Colorado's Thunder Mountain, a sudden cold front whips a small, containable fire into a raging inferno, killing nine heroic firefighters from the Duke City Hotshots. The U.S. Forest Service blames the dead; a victim's grieving mother charges the government with negligence. Into this flammable mix enters Albuquerque lawyer Neil Hamel, hired to pursue the explosive wrongful death case. Mounting
...It's a 104 degree day in Albuquerque when attorney/sleuth Neil Hamel gets a call asking her to go to southern New Mexico to help a wolf advocate who calls himself Juan Sololobo. Juan, who attracts trouble wherever he goes, is visiting the town of Soledad to give an educational program featuring his timber wolf, Sirius. After someone lets Sirius out of his pen, a federal official is murdered and Juan becomes the prime suspect. As Neil defends him
...When Claire Reynier becomes the victim of credit card fraud, she's stunned to discover that Evelyn Martin, an old college friend and sorority sister, is the culprit. She's even more shocked when Evelyn turns up dead. According to the police, Evelyn also swindled three other former classmates, but Claire is the only one without an alibi for the time of Evelyn's murder. And the only one with an extra motive: Evelyn stole her rare signed first edition
...7) Raptor
A steady law practice, a stash of tequila, a lover she calls the Kid—only a debt of the heart to her dear, dead aunt Joan could compel Neil Hamel to leave Albuquerque for Montana in search of a bird. No ordinary winged creature, the Arctic falcon is a near-mythic figure, a cool killer who likes the meat around the heart. In pursuit of this elusive species, Neil witnesses a sight even more awesome—a body plunging off a cliff. Soon she
...Early in the morning of November 1, Albuquerque lawyer Neil Hamel and her boyfriend, the Kid, are shaken out of their post-coital bliss when they find a surprise visitor at Neil's apartment door. The visitor is Martha Conover, a pinched, elegant older woman pleads for help. Martha's been accused of running over Justine Virga, the girl who accidentally killed her grandson, Michael, in a car crash three years—to the day—earlier. But Martha
...On one side of the border, a murder; on the other, a killer. In between stands Neil Hamel, a woman and lawyer with a passion for the truth. "Don't worry, Chiquita," was the Kid's answer to almost everything, and right now Neil Hamel missed the Kid—her part-time lover and car mechanic. Neil had gone to Mexico as a favor to a man she shouldn't be doing favors for, and what it got her was a face-to-face meeting with a corpse, a Mexican lawyer
...10) Parrot Blues
She may be a divorce lawyer, but Neil Hamel uses her PI's instincts when a millionaire's rare indigo macaw and newly endangered wife are kidnapped together. The unusual search puts her right in the heart of New Mexico's breathtaking Plains of San Agustin, for a dangerous game of bird smuggling and one-upmanship. Armed with high-tech surveillance equipment and a backpack full of her client's money, Neil treks to a remote exchange point. Alas, she
...When a young woman is found dead in the basement of the university library—with an illustration from a valuable book beside her—Claire recognizes the victim as someone she had met, but whose name she never knew. To learn more, Claire must descend into the haunting world of the homeless in Albuquerque, where the dead woman was known simply as Maia. It is a name with special meaning, the same as that of a mythical Greek woman who fled
...The "annual" Saint Patrick's Day party hosted by Tim and Jamie Malone in their small northern New Mexico community is their first in many years. For Albuquerque attorney Neil Hamel, going to the party is a reunion of sorts with various old friends she spent a year carousing with in a small town in Mexico in the late 1960s. Just about everyone seems to have made some move from hippie to mainstream except Lonnie Darmer, who—as in the old days—gets
...Jonathan Vail's novel made him famous. His disappearance made him a legend. Thirty-five years ago the young writer embarked on a camping trip in Utah's Slickrock Canyon, never to be seen again. His journal vanished with him. Now, archivist Claire Reynier—preserver of Vail's legacy—finds herself drawn into literature's most elusive mystery. But separating fact from fiction proves to be a dangerous proposition. The search for the missing
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