This is a very good first novel. Generally, with mysteries, especially with those authors who have a series, I recommend to people that they start with book 4 or 5 and then, if they like what they read, go back and start from the beginning. This is because mystery novelists seem to need some breaking in time, and if you make a judgment on the first book, you're not likely to continue with the series. Locke, though, does a very good job on this novel, her first.
In addition to the mystery, the book treats the mystery as the springboard of a reflexion on his life -- and what a life -- a young man who came of age in the 60s and early 70s, who needs now to adjust to the much different world of the Reagan Revolution, in Houston. In this world, can any of the hero's ideals survive in a world where the financial bottom line seems the only consideration?