This week’s featured Southwest book series is The Warbonnet
Mystery Series by Robert Kresge. The series is set
in Wyoming in the 1870s and begins with Murder
For Greenhorns. The books blend history and an ongoing romance with the
mystery plots.
Robert is “a former CIA senior intelligence analyst and
founding member of the Counterterrorist Center.” Wow! With that background, you
might expect modern thrillers from him. But he says, "A life in
intelligence work has taught me an important lesson: History
matters. Life is sculpted from the raw materials of people, place, and
time acted upon by the forces of personality, culture, and ideas. I enjoy
looking back at crucial points in history to reexamine the interplay of these
elements.”
Here’s a review from Ann Hillerman, author of the
award-winning Leaphorn and Chee Navajo mysteries, including Spider
Woman’s Daughter and Rock With Wings
“Over the Brink, the latest installment in the captivating Warbonnet mysteries, takes the reader away from
the Wyoming landscape the author describes so beautifully to the well-tended
lawns of New England. School teacher Kate Shaw has returned to her parents’
tree-filled, tradition-bound small town. Marshal Monday Malone follows her
there, and also visits burgeoning Chicago, both rendered so vividly that the
reader steps right into the late 19th century. The well-paced romantic tension
between the two escalates as they struggle to discover why several young women
have been discovered bruised and dead, and why their bodies remain unclaimed.
This entertaining and well-written novel is a fine addition to Robert Kresge’s
worthy series. Bravo.”
Robert is also the
author of Saving Lincoln: “In the closing days of the Civil War, Beth
Wendland, a burnt-out Union spy in Richmond, stumbles across a Confederate plot
to send a wagon bomb to blow up the White House and kill President Lincoln
while he’s meeting with his generals. Abandoned by her political masters, Beth
must evade Rebel soldiers and the bomb’s mastermind to deliver the information
to Washington before the conspirators can launch their deadly attack. Assisted
by the Federal officer who loves her, Beth risks more than her life to snuff
out the burning fuse of the world’s first vehicle bomb and prevent disaster on
the eve of victory.”
Historical Novels Review says: “Robert Kresge will astonish audiences with his Civil War
novel. He maintains balance between the realms of reality and fiction to
complement his imagined tale. Saving Lincoln is a plausibly animated historical
novel. Highly recommended.”
