Bad Company: A Mustang Sally Mystery - Hardcover

Swift, Virginia

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060195541 ISBN 13: 9780060195540

Publisher: Harper, 2002

Synopsis

Jubilee Days: Laramie, Wyoming's annual rodeo bash and sin fest. It's a whole week of broncos bucking, guitars twanging, and cash registers ringing. Nobody much wants to spoil the party, not even when a local loser turns up dead in the mountains east of town.

Almost nobody. Sally Adler and Hawk Green, a couple of college professors out for an afternoon hike, find the body, and for Sally and Hawk, murder is anything but academic. Like the victim, Sally's done her time in the glare of the late-night neon lights, and she knows how thin the line can be between honky-tonk angels and lost souls. She's determined to do what she can to see justice. Hawk knows he'd better stay close and keep his eyes open. Sally has a way of attracting the wrong kind of attention.

From the jam-packed barrooms to the wide-open spaces, Sally and Hawk unravel the dark threads of a sinister scheme. It's a race to find the killer before Sally becomes the next victim.

About this title

About the Author

Virginia Swift teaches history at the University of New Mexico. She also writes nonfiction under the name of Virginia Scharff. She lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Reviews

Following a well-received debut (2000's Brown-Eyed Girl), the new adventure featuring "Mustang" Sally Adler (for the car, not the horse) and the living jewel called Wyoming is another delectable tale of strong women of the West. Swift gives readers a lot to like: wicked satire of pompous academics, smart but not smart-alecky writing, the achingly beautiful landscape of the eastern Rockies, great sex between grownups old enough to know what they're doing and why and most of all, the dead-on portrayal of a Western town, in this case Laramie, Wyo. (pop. 27,000). A history professor at the University of New Mexico, Swift clearly knows how Westerners act and think. When the going gets tough, they "cowboy up." They say to the government, "Just give me the check and get the hell out." Their idea of fancy Saturday night garb is dress jeans and cowboy boots. They work phrases from country songs into their everyday conversation, and name their children after country singers. When Sally's best friend marries a rodeo rider named Walker Davis, what else would they call their son but Jerry Jeff Walker Davis? The core plot is not complex, but it feels real. Two main threads the rape and murder of a young woman who's no one's candidate for the girl next door and a land swap deal that stinks of greed and corruption even before toxic groundwater is discovered are resolved in a way that poignantly reminds us that sometimes morality has murky edges. All told, this is a refreshing piece of work by a strong new talent.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Country-western singer and college professor "Mustang" Sally Alder is back for a second adventure in Laramie, Wyoming. During the annual Jubilee Days, supermarket clerk Monette Bandy turns up dead in a desert area outside of town. Known for her bad taste in men, Monette was not very bright but harmless. Sally wants Monette's killer brought to justice, but she realizes that the authorities are more concerned with maintaining the festive atmosphere of Jubilee Days and ensuring that no revenue is lost as a result of a crime scare. With the help of her friends, Sally discovers that Monette's death was the unfortunate by-product of a scam involving unsavory real-estate deals and corrupt environmentalists. The lively characters and surprising plot twists, combined with the ambience of the modern Wild West, are the appeal factors in this entertaining mystery. Barbara Bibel
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

After language arts teacher Margo Brown (Why Johnny Died) and her husband discover an old gun buried in their garden, Margo cannot resist investigating. Working with clues from her husband and his ninetyish father, who remembers the 50-year-old unsolved shooting of a local landowner, plus research results from the library and reminiscences from the victim's relatives, Margo manages to ruffle some important feathers. This intriguing puzzle is fleshed out with bucolic details of cooking, gardening, yard work, and gossip in rural Indiana. A pleasant read; for regional and larger mystery collections.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Harper
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0060195541
• ISBN 13: 9780060195540
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 336