It is a devastating tragedy: in the South Canyon of Colorado’s Thunder Mountain, a sudden cold front whips a small, containable fire into a raging inferno, killing nine heroic firefighters from the Duke City Hotshots. The US Forest Service blames the dead; a victim’s grieving mother charges the government with negligence. Into this flammable mix enters Albuquerque lawyer Neil Hamel, hired to pursue the explosive wrongful death case. Mounting an investigation of her own, Neil interviews shocked survivors of the fire, then hikes the charred remains of the forest where the Hotshots met their end. But after retracing the steps of their flight, she will face the terror of their last gasps of breath—because someone is playing with fire.
“Solid writing and plotting, a likable heroine, and an intriguing look at the brave men and women who fight forest fires make this a good choice.”--Booklist
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As Neil settles into her new house in Albuquerque’s North Valley, she befriends thirteen-year-old Cheyanne Morales, who lives in a nearby trailer with her mother and her younger half-brother. Cheyanne’s teenage angst is complicated by the pressures that gang culture imposes on her and her peers. Neil gets a harrowing glimpse of these pressures when a fifteen-year-old is shot to death not far from Neil’s new home. The cops suspect a rival gang member, but late one night, a battered Cheyanne shows up at Neil’s front door to confess that she was the shooter.
The authorities are reluctant to accept Cheyanne’s story—as a minor she’d get only a slap on the wrist—and Neil is dubious too, but she agrees to represent her young friend. With Cheyanne in custody, Neil uncovers chilling evidence that the girl’s family and friends intend to take justice into their own hands. Only Neil and her lover, the Kid, can prevent another tragedy from playing out along the ditches of her new neighborhood.
With its intricate, timely plot, deft characterizations, and artful evocations of place, Ditch Rider confirms Judith Van Gieson’s reputation as one of the foremost writers of Southwestern suspense.
“Suffused with melancholy, Van Gieson’s moving exploration of the depredations of gang culture contributes a poignant chord to this richly characterized and atmospheric series.”—Publishers Weekly
How could you forget whether or not you murdered somebody? That's exactly what Albuquerque lawyer-cum-sleuth Neil Hamel asks herself when she takes on the defense of an elderly client who can't remember whether she ran over the girl her car surely did kill.
Early in the morning of November 1st, Neil and her boyfriend, the Kid, are shaken out of their post-coital bliss when they find a surprise visitor at Neil's apartment door. The visitor is Martha Conover, a pinched, elegant older woman who looks askance at Neil's "just-had-sex aura" but still pleads for her help. Martha's been accused of running over Justine Virga, the girl who accidentally killed her grandson, Michael, in a car crash three years-to the day-earlier. Though Justine's crushed corpse is found outside Martha's home and Martha's car bears an incriminating dent, Neil gradually discovers clues from Martha's prim past and Justine's wild one that point to other suspects, from drug dealers to South American death squads to Michael's Latino father, wronged two decades earlier by Martha's bigotry.
While Neil searches for Justine's killer, she treats us to her wry take on every stratum of today's Southwest, from its breathtaking landscape to the real estate boondoggles that the S&L crisis has inflicted upon it, from Santa Fe's polo set and new age entrepreneurs to a homeless man who coaxes poetry out of used typewriters.
She may be a divorce lawyer, but Neil Hamel uses her PI's instincts when a millionaire's rare indigo macaw and newly endangered wife are kidnapped together. The unusual search puts her right in the heart of New Mexico's breathtaking Plains of San Agustin, for a dangerous game of bird smuggling and one-upmanship. Armed with high-tech surveillance equipment and a backpack full of her client's money, Neil treks to a remote exchange point. Alas, she returns with the indigo but no wife, and she's beginning to get ideas. When she learns that one of her chief suspects has suspiciously expired in her absence, Neil makes it her mission to find out who killed him and where the kidnapped woman is. So far, the only eyewitnesses are the parrots-and they're not talking.
"Neil Hamel, the brisk Albuquerque attorney with a distinctly Southwestern spiritual side, makes her sixth appearance...in this clever, winning tale."-Publishers Weekly
It's a 104 degree day in Albuquerque when attorney/sleuth Neil Hamel gets a call asking her to go to southern New Mexico to help a wolf advocate who calls himself Juan Sololobo. Juan, who attracts trouble wherever he goes, is visiting the town of Soledad to give an educational program featuring his timber wolf, Sirius. After someone lets Sirius out of his pen, a federal official is murdered and Juan becomes the prime suspect. As Neil defends him she finds herself immersed in a deadly conflict between ranchers and environmentalists over wolf reintroduction.
On one side of the border stands a murder; on the other, a killer. In between stands Neil Hamel, a woman with a passion for the truth.
"Don't worry, Chiquita" was the Kid's answer to almost everything, and right now Neil Hamel missed the Kid-her part-time lover and car mechanic. Neil had gone to Mexico as a favor to a man she shouldn't be doing favors for, and what it got her was a face-to-face meeting with a corpse, a Mexican lawyer with a diamond pinky ring and a throat slit from ear to ear. Returning home to Albuquerque, Neil can't let go of the tangled scheme she has uncovered. Looking for the truth, she finds human predators and is soon hot on the trail of a killer.
"Neil Hamel is the best thing to happen to criminal investigation since Father Brown...Van Gieson is a classy writer."-Tony Hillerman, former president of the Mystery Writers of America
A steady law practice, a stash of tequila, a lover she calls the Kid-only a debt of the heart to her dear, dead aunt Joan could compel Neil Hamel to leave Albuquerque for Montana in search of a bird. No ordinary winged creature, the Arctic falcon is a near-mythic figure, a cool killer who likes the meat around the heart. In pursuit of this elusive species, Neil witnesses a sight even more awesome-a body plunging off a cliff. Soon she is swept into a murder case that brings together militant environmentalists and high-stakes poachers, federal investigators, and even an Arabian prince. Suddenly, in a wilderness where she has no shelter and little chance for survival, Neil is the target of human predators.
"Well written...Entertaining."-Boston Sunday Globe
The “annual” Saint Patrick’s Day party hosted by Tim and Jamie Malone in their small northern New Mexico community is their first in many years. But it also marks their last as they prepare to move to the Midwest. For Albuquerque attorney Neil Hamel, going to the party is a reunion of sorts with various old friends she spent a year carousing with in a small town in Mexico in the late 1960s.
Just about everyone seems to have made some move from hippie to mainstream except Lonnie Darmer, who—as in the old days—gets too drunk to drive home. Neil drives them both to Lonnie’s little house in Santa Fe and wakes the next morning to discover her missing. Lonnie is found dead in an Anasazi ruin in the mountains near Santa Fe, her body unscathed. The police immediately conclude Lonnie committed suicide, and her friends seem almost relieved to concur—all except Neil.
As she investigates her friend’s death, suspects suddenly abound. Even Neil herself comes under suspicion, as the real killer draws ever closer, eager to satisfy a newfound appetite for killing.
“Satisfying…The rich atmosphere of North New Mexico and some offbeat and intriguing characters combine to give this book a sharp and appealing edge.”--Publishers Weekly
Jonathan Vail’s novel made him famous. His disappearance made him a legend. Thirty-five years ago, the young writer embarked on a camping trip in Utah’s Slickrock Canyon, never to be seen again. His journal vanished with him. Now, archivist Claire Reynier, preserver of Vail’s legacy, finds herself drawn into literature’s most elusive mystery. But separating fact from fiction proves to be a dangerous proposition. The search for the missing diary has led Claire to a case of cold-blooded murder committed in the shadow of Vail family secrets—and linked to a devoted fan determined to keep the mystery of Jonathan Vail’s vanishing buried forever.
“Exciting and mysterious, Vanishing Point makes for fascinating reading. Van Gieson holds her plot together beautifully, all the while setting the scene for a fine surprise ending.”--RT Book Reviews (4½ stars)
When Claire Reynier becomes the victim of credit card fraud, she’s stunned to discover that Evelyn Martin, an old college friend and sorority sister, is the culprit. She’s even more shocked when Evelyn turns up dead. According to the police, Evelyn also swindled three other former classmates, but Claire is the only one without an alibi for the time of Evelyn’s murder. And the only one with an extra motive: Evelyn stole her rare signed first edition of Herman Melville’s The Confidence-Man, which is still missing. Now, dodging danger at every turn, Claire must sift through past grudges and long-buried resentments to uncover the truth—and clear her name.
“Van Gieson combines solid character development with a fascinating plot, ambient New Mexico atmosphere, and surprise ending.”--Booklist
Archivist Claire Reynier may have a priceless find on her hands. A woman named Isabel Santos has discovered a faded document hidden for hundreds of years under the floor of her family’s adobe house. It could be the controversial last words of a Jewish mystic condemned to death by the Inquisition in Mexico City. But before Claire can establish the document’s authenticity, it disappears, and tragedy visits the Santos family. As Claire searches for the missing paper, she fears that uncovering the history of a dark and dangerous time may bolster her career—at the cost of her life.
“Van Gieson writes with grace, tangles her phrases skillfully, and plots a compelling story down to the intricate final turns.”--Washington Post Book World
When a young woman is found dead in the basement of the university library—with an illustration from a valuable book beside her—Claire recognizes the victim as someone she had met, but whose name she never knew. To learn more, Claire must descend into the haunting world of the homeless in Albuquerque, where the dead woman was known simply as Maia. It is a name with special meaning, the same as that of a mythical Greek woman who fled to the sky to escape her attacker. The illustration leads Claire to a secretive commune in Taos where Maia grew up—and may have suffered terrible abuse. But someone doesn’t want Claire to shed too much light on the shadows of the past—and will do anything to stop her.
“A gripping crime novel…A likeable heroine, compelling story line, and vivid descriptions make this book a winner.”--Albuquerque Journal
