The Warbonnet #Mystery Series by Robert Kresge

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.”