Die In Texas

Demary Jones #6

by E.L. Larkin

When Demary visits her childhood friend, Katy Valentine, in New Mexico she expects to enjoy an old time barbecue, hear all the local gossip and just generally have a great time despite the ninety degree temperatures. She certainly doesn't expect to find herself witnessing a three-man fight that turns out to be a murder in progress. And what makes it worse, she discovers one of the three is a law man. In a strange town and without any backup she decides to stay away from the investigation, keep her mouth shut, and head for the cooler environs of home without delay. Concern for Katy's safety, however, keeps her in New Mexico and she soon finds that if she wants to keep them both alive she is going to have to track down a man on a killing spree.

182 pages, Hardcover

Published December 1, 2002

About the author

E.L. Larkin is a former Seattle resident who spent years as the owner/operator of restaurants in Washington, California and New Mexico, observing people. She now lives in Aberdeen, Washington, a seacoast town, but still spends time in Seattle where her character, Demary Jones, works and lives.

Reviews

[Jane Irish Nelson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Demary is visiting a childhood friend on the New Mexico-Texas border when she just happens to encounter a mystery. The plot is extremely thin. Demary does almost no investigation — after all, she insists she is not a private investigator, and she is out of her normal milieu — but instead spends most of the book trying to get her friend Katy to leave.

[Emely · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty intriguing book that involves a corrupted town with secrets between New Mexico and Texas. Not all all friendly faces have good intentions in this town which makes Demary who is the main character in this novel skeptical of who she can trust.

[Roberta · Rating 2 out of 5]

The sixth and apparently the last book in the series. This book takes Demary Jones away from Seattle to do some research in Texas for a client and to visit a ditzy old friend (Oh, no! Not again!) in Del Rio, New Mexico. Before she even reaches her friend's house she witnesses an assault. At her friend's house, she realizes that the assault led to murder and that she can't go to local law enforcement because one of them may be involved.

I wasn't crazy about this book because, away from Seattle, Demary left behind her on-again-off-again boyfriend and her teen-aged sidekick, Joey, who are actually my favorite characters. Her office neighbor & lawyer, Anne, and her receptionist, Martha, are also interesting characters and are off-stage in this book. According to this book, the entire state of New Mexico is populated by totally stereotypical male chauvinists and big-haired bimbos.

My knit pick: Readers are not given a vital clue until page 117 that Demary had since page 1. That breaks rule number 8.

Comment: Demary Jones is totally obsessed with not being controlled by men. As if they were our children (and real people), we hope that characters in a series will mature and learn from experience and we are disappointed when they don't. Demary never comes to realize that consistently doing the exact opposite of anything and everything that any male suggests that she do, is also allowing your actions to be controlled by men.