Cold Tracks

Blood Leaves A Deadly Trail

Tired of the violence of big-city crime, former narcotics agent Frank Carver trades the streets of Seattle for the penny-ante stuff of Oregon's Neskanie National Forest. Work is wonderfully, refreshingly dull for the forest's new law enforcement officer. No shootings. No bodies. No murders.

Until the corpse of Nino Alvarez, an immigrant worker, is found in the woods by fire dispatcher Ginny Trask. Ginny, in light of her connections in the area, is soon deputized by Frank.

Something fishy is going on at Holiday Acres, an enormous Christmas-tree farm Alvarez once managed. Ten thousand dollars is missing. Unsettling visitors from California appear. A prime suspect becomes the second victim. And Ginny's nine-year-old daughter is threatened. It's hardly surprising that the investigation reveals a nightmare of blackmail, illicit passion and secrets explosive enough to kill for...

A lively first effort that pairs the aching-for-quiet Neskanic (Oregon) National Forest security officer Frank Carver with the much younger widow and fire-dispatch ranger Ginny Trask, who finds the grisly remains of Nino Alvarez, a Christmas-tree plantation worker. As Frank and Ginny track through Nino's life, they find relatives with no green cards; a secret affair of the plantation owner's neurotic, unstable daughter (now pregnant); another murder rigged to look like suicide; and persistent sass from Maureen, a secretary who may have been spotted on an overnight with Ginny's married boss, Len Whittaker, who, unlike most people, seemed to dislike Nino intensely. Meanwhile, there are fires to fight, vehicles to search, pine needles to examine, and a missing photograph to worry about before Ginny and Frank wrap up this saga of blackmail and murder. A promising debut, with interesting scenic detail and an engaging pair of sleuths. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.