The Pot Thief Who Studied Georgia O'Keeffe

November 2, 2015
In Orenduff’s enjoyable seventh Pot Thief mystery (after 2013’s The Pot Thief Who Studied Billy the Kid), Hubert Schuze, the Albuquerque, N.Mex., pot thief, learns of a buyer looking for a pot made by the Tompiro people. Schuze thinks he can find one on the prohibited, heavily guarded White Sands Missile Range. With the aid of friend and accomplice Susannah Inchaustigui, he manages to get into the target area and find a valuable pot, but he’s forced to bury it and leave the area without it. Schuze concocts an elaborate plan to retrieve the pot, only to find it gone. The real pot and at least one fake tantalize a bewildering number of collectors, one of whom becomes a murder victim. Schuze and Susannah’s clever word play, a torn canvas that may be an unknown O’Keeffe, and nods to several classic mysteries add to the fun. Agent: Philip Turner Book Productions.

January 1, 2016

Santa Fe, NM, dealer Hubert Schuze liberates ancient pots from their burial spots, much to the dismay of the Bureau of Land Management. In the seventh series entry (after The Pot Thief Who Studied Billy the Kid), Hubie is asked to find a Tompiro pot for a collector, but then the middleman is found dead. In addition, Hubie's friend may have unearthed a lost Georgia O'Keeffe painting. Plenty of fascinating archaeological details here.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 15, 2015
Anyone who has never met Hubie Schuze should know that when he says he's a pot thief, he doesn't mean the kind of pot you light on fire and inhale. He means actual pots: ancient pots, to be specific, found, dug up, and sold for a tidy profit by Hubie. In the latest Pot Thief mystery, Hubie wants to get his hands on a valuable Tompiro pot (the Tompiro Indians being a tribe who lived in and around New Mexico in the seventeenth century), but the pot is on the grounds of the White Sands Missile Range, a heavily guarded military installation. When one of Hubie's friends is murdered, Hubie realizes there are people who don't want him to get his hands on the pot, which makes him want it even more. Fans of the series will flock to this latest installment, and readers who haven't made Hubie's acquaintance should be encouraged to do so. This nice mix of comedy and mystery pairs perfectly with Johnny Shaw's Big Maria, in which three lovable losers hunt for a gold mine on a military test-bombing site.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)