by Julia Spencer Fleming
Only one more after this--I'm already feeling bereft. But my thinking brain says six books without a break is enough.
Her hot topic for this one is migrant workers. A nun is trucking around a load of farm workers with fake work papers; her truck gets a flat tire at high speed and rolls off the road; they run off into the forest, except for the two with injuries. A search team looking for the missing workers is joined by--of course--Claire Ferguson, who happens to be friends with the nun.
Mrs. Spencer-Fleming isn't a bleeding-heart liberal writer--she just likes to tackle a difficult issue and show lots of sides to it. The workers are normal guys, neither good nor evil, just working folk like anyone else you meet. The farmer who employs the illegals can't afford to hire local labor even if he could find it. The loutish rednecks think all Mexicans are thieves and rapists. The Mexicans think all people in uniform are dangerous. And the townspeople, well, they're as prejudiced and gossipy as always.
There are a couple of real baddies, tool. I love/hate the way she takes hold of a villain and makes me almost hate to read the words he's written in. (or hear them--the audiobooks are awesome) Sometimes I get so mad at a person I have to back off and shake myself--it's okay, the author is doing this on purpose--this is not real--it's not my problem. I've not had to skip forward yet, but I've wanted to.
Great writing. A couple of times her two main protagonists act in ways that don't feel consistent, almost like they're being out-of-character in order to drive the plot in the direction she wants. But I'll let her have it--real humans aren't always so consistent either.
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