See Also Proof

March 1, 2018
Looks like Marjorie Trumaine will have to put aside her indexing duties for a third time to deal with a pair of crimes that traumatize little Dickinson, North Dakota, even more deeply than herself.Still unwilling to leave her farmhouse three months after her husband, Hank, succumbed to the wounds he'd received in a hunting accident, Marjorie (See Also Deception, 2016, etc.) is roused from her isolation not by Darlys Oddsdatter, who presses her to join Ladies Aid, but by the disappearance of Tina Rinkerman, a teenager with Down syndrome (the locals describe it in much harsher language in 1965) who couldn't possibly last long on her own in the January cold. Determined to join the search for the girl, Marjorie is riding with acting sheriff Guy Reinhardt, the former deputy who narrowly defeated his predecessor, Duke Parsons, in the last election, when the two of them discover not Tina, but Nils Jacobsen, manager of the Red Owl grocery store, shot to death in his car. The suspects technically include pretty much every soul in Dickinson, but neither Guy nor Marjorie can imagine why any of them would have wanted to kill Nils. Even though Marjorie thinks she glimpsed Tina in a black car that passed her in a blinding snowstorm, the girl continues to be missing. So Guy, who has good reason to distrust many of the locals, sends Marjorie to the real-life Grafton State School, five hours away, where Tina spent most of her life, to pick up documents concerning her stay there. The bulky envelopes entrusted to Marjorie provide a motive for Nils' murder, link the two cases, and put Marjorie's life in danger.Though nobody reads Sweazy for challenging, well-clued mysteries, this is his best-plotted yet. Mostly, however, it's a sensitive dramatization of both the value and the sometimes-high cost of being a good neighbor.

COPYRIGHT(2018) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

March 5, 2018
Tina Rinkerman, a teenager with Down syndrome, goes missing during a 1965 snowstorm, and much of the town of Dickinson, N.Dak., turns out to search for her, in Sweazy’s atmospheric third Marjorie Trumaine mystery (after 2016’s See Also Deception). Marjorie, a recently widowed farmer, doesn’t hold out much hope that Tina survived the frigid night when she joins Sheriff Guy Reinhardt in the search, but the last thing she expects to find is the body of local grocer Nils Jacobsen in a snowy field, shot to death in his car. There seems to be no connection between Tina’s disappearance and Nils’s murder, but Marjorie has been a freelance book indexer for years, and making connections between disparate pieces of information is what she does best. Marjorie is a wonderful character, a woman of her time living in a small town full of secrets, self-sufficient and tentatively beginning to make a new life for herself after years of caring for an invalid husband. Fans of period regional mysteries will hope this series has a long run. Agent: Cherry Weiner, Cherry Weiner Literary Agency.

May 1, 2018

It's only been several months since Marjorie Trumaine's husband, Hank, died. Despite the visits from the Ladies Aid group in Dickinson, ND, Marjorie is struggling to move on after years of taking care of her paralyzed spouse, tending the family farm, and working as an indexer. But when Tina Rinkerman, a neighbor's mentally challenged daughter, goes missing during a January storm, Marjorie insists on accompanying the new sheriff in the search. They find a local store manager shot dead in his car. Is his murder connected to Tina's disappearance? Set in 1965 North Dakota, this bleak mystery follows the tragic events of See Also Deception. There's a strong sense of place in Sweazy's atmospheric novel, which vividly captures hard lives of disappointment and bad luck. The winter storms only emphasize the feelings of isolation and dread, and the introspective Marjorie is the perfect sleuth for this dark series. VERDICT Sweazy's powerful, crime novels should be read with Kelli Stanley's City of Secrets or Diane Chamberlain's Necessary Lies.--Lesa Holstine, Evansville Vanderburgh P.L., IN

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.