Hidden Heritage

August 26, 2013
At the start of Hinger’s slow-moving third Lottie Albright mystery (after 2011’s Lethal Lineage), Lottie, the undersheriff of Carlton County, Kans., receives an emergency call around 2:00 a.m. from the local feed yard. A corpse is floating in the cattle truck washout (aka the “shit pit”), where drivers unload the dirt and manure from their trailers. The dead man is soon identified as Victor Diaz, the feed yard’s foreman, who had no obvious reason to be there in the middle of the night. Lottie, who’s active in the local historical society, draws on her knowledge of Kansas history when Victor turns out to be related to an old land-owning family. Frustrated by her part-time job in law enforcement, Lottie considers quitting, but not before she finds Victor’s killer. The investigation plods, but readers will learn a lot about the cattle business and Kansas history. Agent: Phyllis Westberg, Harold Ober Associates.

Starred review from October 1, 2013
A nasty murder pits the local police against the state police. Historian Lottie Albright's stress level keeps rising as she juggles her research for the historical society, her work as an undersheriff, and the needs of her rancher husband and his children from a former marriage, some close to her own age. When Victor Diaz turns up in the manure pit at a local feedlot, Sheriff Sam Abbot immediately recognizes his death as murder and calls on the state police for forensic help. But Kansas Bureau of Investigation agent Frank Dimon has his own agenda: He's trying to set up a regional police force to replace a group of local sheriffs who often lack the resources to investigate major crimes. As they squabble, Victor's reclusive great-grandmother Dona Francisca Diaz invites Lottie to her ranch and asks her help in solving the murder. Even though the enormous Diaz ranch is an oasis of green, with ample water in the midst of an area of Western Kansas burning up under drought conditions, not one acre has been plowed for farming. Francisca is a curandera who shares her knowledge of medicinal and magic herbs with Lottie, along with historical information about her famed family, whose Spanish roots go far back in American history. Could the Diaz family's long-simmering lawsuit against the government that claims a vast area of land as their own be a motive for murder? Lottie must use all her many skills to solve a case that has far-reaching ramifications. This third case for Lottie (Lethal Lineage, 2011, etc.) is filled with surprising historical information, social commentary, romance and a strong mystery.

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September 15, 2013
Lottie Albright, undersheriff of Carlton County, Kansas, isn't too thrilled with her latest assignmentgoing undercover at a livestock feed yard to investigate a man's death. Apparently there are some illegal activities going on in which the sheriff himself might be involved. Convinced that the sheriff is being wrongly accused, Lottie vows to clear her friend and colleague's name. This is the third Albright mystery, and, like the previous two, it draws on Lottie's other occupationhistorianto tell a story in which a modern-day crime connects with mysteries from the past. The author adroitly juggles the primary story with a subplot concerning the effects Lottie's secrecy about her assignment are having on her family.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)