Dream Queen by Betsy Thornton

First Line: It seems like so very long ago that I boarded the plane from New York City to Arizona, on my way to the small town of Dudley, to see my little brother Danny and to see Hal, and, in fact, it was long ago-- before cell phones came along and BlackBerrys and computers you could Google on.

This sixth book in the Chloe Newcombe series is actually a prequel, telling us what brought Chloe to Dudley, Arizona.

Two years after her older brother, James, died of AIDS in California, Chloe has ended her relationship with an alcoholic ex-cop. She decides to take a short break from being a private investigator in New York City to visit her younger brother, Danny, in Dudley, Arizona (a very thinly disguised Bisbee). James' partner Hal owns a house there where Danny has moved in with Kristi Marsh, a troubled and beautiful young woman. 

When Chloe's flight arrives in Tucson, she's met by Danny and Kristi, and they begin the long drive to Dudley. In Benson, the van breaks down. Danny sends the two women across the street to a diner while he stays at the garage to oversee the repairs. Time passes, and no sign of Danny. When Chloe walks back to the garage to see what's going on, the mechanic tells her that Danny got into a car with another man and drove off. Danny never comes back.

Chloe knows that something is desperately wrong, but she has an extremely difficult time convincing local police of it. There's nothing for Chloe to do but get in the van with Kristi and drive to Dudley. Then Kristi vanishes and is later found shot to death. Now the police are very interested in finding her ex-con brother Danny. Chloe knows that she's the only real chance Danny has of getting a fair break. But where is he? Is Danny still alive?

Before I even say anything about the book itself, I want to say that I love the cover (and I'm not a reader who sets much store by book covers)! The artist didn't quite understand the steep slopes of the Mule Mountains with old wooden houses valiantly clinging to their sides, but it's close. And the sky? The sky is totally right. Enough art interpretation!

In many ways, it feels as though main character Chloe Newcombe is sitting on her porch looking at the book cover sky and reliving a memory that she'd like to change. The book is not told in the manner of a flashback, though. In a very few paragraphs, her plane lands in Tucson, and we're completely back in the 1990s when Chloe first stepped foot in the old mining town of Dudley.

Chloe's faith in her younger brother is absolute. She's never pretended that Danny's led a blameless life, but she knows what he is capable of. Abandoning the woman and the sister he loves in a diner alongside the interstate is not something Danny would do. Chloe does whatever needs to be done to try to find him-- and then she adds finding Kristi's killer to her list.

One of the things that made the biggest impression on me was the feeling of exhaustion throughout the book. This is a woman who's going through an unhappy time in her life; she's in a completely unfamiliar place and climate; she's getting very little help from anyone; she seldom feels like eating; and sleep is a stranger. But her sheer determination is awe-inspiring. Many people reading the book won't pay all that much attention to the miles she racks up driving to Benson and Tucson, back to Dudley, then back to Tucson to hop a plane to fly to California to drive to someone who may have some information she's looking for... then back to Dudley. The trips to California are day trips. Tucson to Dudley is a ninety-minute trip one way. This made me tired, and I wasn't behind the wheel. The woman certainly deserves frequent driver miles.

People have died, others have disappeared, and some of the people Chloe knows aren't whom they appear to be. Through her sadness, worry and exhaustion, she's got to sort that all out and pray that it all turns out for the best. From the light fog of dread that drifts throughout the book, it's a sure thing that not everything is going to end well. But it won't be for the lack of trying on the part of one solitary, worn-out woman fighting for the people she loves.

I liked being able to see what brought Chloe to her life in Dudley. Was I drawn in by her plight? Absolutely. At the very least I wanted be her chauffeur so she could get some sleep!

If you haven't read any of the other books in the series, you aren't going to be lost by picking this one up. (It's a prequel after all.) When you're finished, you just might want to read more about Chloe Newcombe, and there are five good books waiting for you.

Dream Queen by Betsy Thornton

ISBN: 9780312602055

Minotaur Books  ©2010

Hardcover, 288 pages

#6 Chloe Newcombe mystery

Rating: A

Source: Purchased from Amazon.

A Song for You by Betsy Thornton

Title: A Song for You
Author: Betsy Thornton 
ISBN: 9780312380625
Publisher: Minotaur Books, 2008
Hardcover, 304 pages
Genre: Private Investigator, #5 Chloe Newcomb mystery
Rating: A-
Source: Paperback Swap

First Line: I'd heard stories and there is always something worse than what you are going through right now but it was the worst monsoon in my memory.

To those living elsewhere, the knowledge that Arizona has a monsoon season probably sounds more than a bit humorous-- until you realize that  "monsoon" means "seasonal rains". The deserts of southern Arizona only receive a miserly seven inches of rain per year (in a good year), and those rains are very seasonal: winter and summer. In summer, a monsoon storm can be very fierce with dust storms, strong winds, and an inch of rain that wants to fall in five minutes or less. A lot of water falling that fast on hard-packed dirt can cause torrential run-off.

The Barnetts, newcomers to Dudley, bought themselves a lovely little cottage but weren't prepared for the ferocity of monsoon season. In no time at all they learned that many of the restored features of their home were merely cosmetic. Just skin deep. They were less than pleased when they were told that a retaining wall had to be repaired-- and they were horrified when a dead body is dug up.

The body had been there for quite some time, and when Rachel Macabee reads about it in the local paper, she becomes convinced that the dead man was a member of the rock band her mother sang with when Rachel was a little girl. The man had disappeared a few days before her mother was killed. Not trusting the police (since they'd gotten it wrong the first time), she hires private detective Brian Flynn, a former police officer and Chloe Newcomb's former lover.

Chloe, a victims advocate for the Cochise County Attorney's Office, is becoming more and more disenchanted with her job-- mainly due to her new boss, who's really good at attending meetings only to come back and drive everyone in the office crazy:

I went back to my desk. I couldn't see that victims had it any better now that everything was online. I couldn't see that I had any more time to serve them either. It was more like I had less. I was just a leftover, I thought, from the days before computers, and now the great wheel of technology juiced up by master's degrees in business administration had rolled over me and squished me-- a mashed-up relic-- a human being.

Though Netflix was awfully convenient.

Brian asks Chloe for her help, and although she has misgivings, she agrees. Her career as a victims advocate means that she's a perfect listener; she can deal with highly emotional people and situations and glean the facts. This also means that she approaches Rachel's case from a different perspective than Brian Flynn, so there is conflict between the two. But with both of them on the case, there's little doubt that Rachel will finally learn what happened to her mother and be able to put the past behind her.

Since Brian and Chloe have a history, the dynamics between the two in the workplace makes for some interesting interactions, and as always, Chloe's voice, both interior and exterior, can be very amusing. Rachel, scarred by her mother's death when she was a child, is a very sympathetically drawn character even though some of her behaviors-- and the way the two men in her life treat her-- can be annoying to say the least.

I've enjoyed Betsy Thornton's books since the first, The Cowboy Rides Away. Chloe is a woman with a past that you don't learn about all at once. As a victim advocate her approach to each crime is slightly different than the norm, and she lives in an area-- Cochise County, Arizona-- that's filled with characters and stories. Thornton's characterizations, stories, and use of the wonderful setting of a thinly disguised Bisbee, Arizona, makes this one of my favorite mystery series.

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