The Woman Who Knew Too Much (A Cordelia Morgan Mystery) - Softcover

Johnson, Bett Reece

3.71

21 ratings by Goodreads

9781573440455: The Woman Who Knew Too Much (A Cordelia Morgan Mystery)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1573440450 ISBN 13: 9781573440455

Publisher: Cleis Press, 1998

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First in the Cordelia Morgan Mystery series

In the New Mexico "outback," someone is experimenting with a new designer drug developed to give fellows a little boost, if some of its nasty side effects can be removed. Enter Cordelia Morgan, on a routine assignment that turns out to be anything but.

Jet Butler has lived on an isolated mesa for more than twenty years ever since her feminist bestseller indirectly caused the deaths of eighty-three women and children living in a commune during an FBI-bungled siege. Now her best friend and next-door neighbor, Kit, is the prime suspect in the murder of a local recluse, a man Jet ranks as the single most unlikeable human being she's ever met.

Enter Cord Morgan. She's a hit artist for The Company, an international "contracting" firm. Morgan is a few years past the ten-year limit prescribed for her line of work. The Company, sensing the beginning of a crack or two, gives her an easy vacation assignment in rural New Mexico. But when she meets up with Jet Butler, her facade really begins to crack and Cordelia Morgan finds herself on the run.

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Review:

Jet Butler returns to her home on an isolated New Mexico mesa after a teaching stint at a West Coast university and finds herself embroiled in the mysterious death of Jas Blankenship, a thoroughly disagreeable alcoholic and would-be novelist who's made plenty of enemies in town. Chief among these is Jet's guesthouse tenant and best friend, artist and activist Kit Willis. Kit's very public feud with Jas (over a plan to lower water levels in the Pecos River) just before he died has made her a prime suspect in what's shaping up to be a murder case. When Caroline Marcus, a woman who claims to be Jas's ex-lover, turns up in search of Jas's missing manuscript, Jet finds herself strangely drawn to her. Caroline knows a great deal about Jet's own past--notably, that she's really Anna Stone, author of a feminist bestseller that indirectly caused the deaths of 67 women and children in an FBI siege of their commune nearly 30 years earlier. It's not long before Jet learns that Caroline isn't who she seems, either--she's a specialist with the Company, a shadowy private "contracting" firm hired to make sure the Pecos River project goes through without interference from Kit or anyone else who might guess what's polluting the river.

The Woman Who Knew Too Much is a riveting and well-crafted thriller that turned up in the "slush pile" at a small feminist press. The author offers a plot that mixes murder, water rights, environmental hazards, and designer drugs--including a synthetic testosterone with deadly side effects. The lesbian subtext is as unexplained as Jet's growing fascination with the local sheriff in charge of investigating Jas's death. And while Jet is the protagonist and central figure, it's Cordelia Morgan, a.k.a. Caroline Marcus, who stars in this first of a promised series. --Jane Adams

From the Publisher:

First in a series! We are thrilled to have "discovered" Bett Johnson, a gifted writer and fascinating woman, and to be publishing her wonderful first mystery. Set in rural New Mexico near Santa Fe, THE WOMAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH has a strong feminist bent, a lesbian subtext, and tackles issues of environmentalism and corporate corruption, as well as personal integrity and history. Bett is working on her second Cordelia Morgan mystery, which finds Morgan hiding out from The Company in a gated community near Aspen, Colorado. Watch for Bett on tour in Santa Fe, Albuquerque, Denver, Austin, San Antonio, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle.

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