Saving Cecil

February 23, 2015
Mims’s middling third mystery featuring geologist Cleo Cooper (after 2014’s Trusting Viktor) unfolds on a troubled North Carolina dairy farm. Cleo is working on a fracking project when she stumbles on a corpse. The local sheriff, with whom she has a bad history—he once imprisoned her innocent father—makes Cleo his prime suspect. As she investigates on the sly, Cleo is shot at and later chloroformed after discovering an illegal trophy-hunting scheme. Meanwhile, she’s remarrying her ex, Bud, in a lavish wedding she disdains and trying to reconnect with her estranged father. And then there’s the titular Cecil, a fossilized bone/geological discovery that needs to be protected. Cecil is the weakest element in a mystery that fails to generate much tension. The geological details hold some interest, as does the introduction of a Bitzenburger fletching jig (for making arrows), but the amateur sleuthing wears thin. Agent: Kimberley Cameron, Kimberley Cameron & Associates.

February 1, 2015
Drilling for natural gas gets a geologist in deep trouble when she finds a body near the drill site.Getting treed by a feral hog wasn't on Cleo Cooper's agenda when she agreed to serve as consulting geologist for Greenlite Energy's search for natural gas on the Lauderbach Dairy Farm. Even lower on her priority list is to come upon a body in the woods on her way back to the crew. When Cleo's longtime nemesis, Lee County Sheriff Clyde Stuckey, the man who locked up her old man back in the day, is called in to investigate, Cleo wishes she could leave the past in the past. The sheriff has other ideas that include pinning the murder on Cleo. Luckily for her, the sheriff's detective, Sgt. Chris Bryant, decides to be on her side, even if it's only because he wants the chance to sweet-talk her. Little does he know that Cleo's already spoken for. She's just weeks from remarrying her ex-husband, Bud, whose birth certificate says he's Franklin Donovan Cooper IV. Even if she were interested in Chris, he's closer in age to her kids than to her. Since his support isn't enough to get Cleo cleared for certain, a little detective work is in order to establish who had reason to kill someone who seems to have been a friendly college kid. Given the controversy over gas drilling, Cleo's worried there might be an environmental angle to the crime. But when she finds a well-preserved fossil she dubs "Cecil," she thinks she's found the real motive.Mims' heroine (Trusting Viktor, 2014, etc.) and supporting cast flesh out a rich crew of characters, although Cecil's prominence in the title is a bit too much of a spoiler.

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March 1, 2015

Serving as consulting geologist on a natural gas dig in North Carolina is a filthy job, but not one that normally involves finding fresh corpses. Unless you're Cleo Cooper. A magnet for trouble, Cleo discovers the body of University of North Carolina student Clinton Baker while scouting a drilling location on farmland owned by the Lauderbach family. Even though it's clear Cleo isn't the culprit, the crusty sheriff, who holds a decades-old grudge against Cleo and her father, decides she's the prime suspect. This false accusation, coupled with Cleo's natural inclination for amateur sleuthing and her desire to prove Sheriff Stuckey wrong, spurs her to catch up with Clinton's real killer. The investigation reaches from feral hog breeding to the dangers of fracking. VERDICT Though Cleo's family drama--she's remarrying her first husband, and her children insist on throwing the pair an elaborate wedding--slows down the story, this third series installment (after 2014's Trusting Viktor) is a compelling mystery full of near-misses and scientific wisecracks.

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