High Desert Malice

Dee Laguerre Mystery #1

by Kirk Mitchell

Investigating the murders of two people in the Nevada sagebrush country, U.S. Bureau of Land Management ranger Dee Laguerre fears that her chief suspect is a down-and-out cattleman for whom she still has feelings

Genres: Thriller, Fiction, Crime, Mystery

276 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1995

About the author

Kirk Mitchell is an author who is known for his time travel, alternate history, historical fiction, and adventure fiction novels. Mitchell has also created several novelizations of movies.He writes under the pseudonym of Joel Norst

Kirk Mitchell served as a deputy sheriff on the Paiute- Shoshone Indian reservations of the desert country that includes Death Valley, and was a SWAT sergeant in southern California, before beginning his career as a full-time writer.

Reviews

[George Grimes · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid, well written mystery

The solution to the mystery is not obviously telegraphed but hints are given at appropriate places. I knew the solution by the time the main character revealed it but there was still an action-packed climax to come. I would have enjoyed it just as much with some of the dialogue toned down but others may argue that this made the characters more real/believable.

[Jeff Dickison · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good detective/murder mystery set in Nevada. Bureau of Land Management officer must find who slaughtered a herd of mustangs. She also must solve the murder of another BLM officer and a botanist while cooling a feud between the Basque sheepherders and the local cattlemen. Well done with interesting characters. Recommended.

[Holli Lane · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Nikki · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dee LaGuerre, a Bureau of Land Management ranger, has divorced her yuppie environmental lawyer husband and returned to her home county in Nevada. Her job puts her in conflict with the cattle ranchers she's known all her life -- even more than she already was, having grown up as the daughter of a Basque sheeprancher. Her environmental sympathies also pit her against her supervisor, a go-along-to-get-along type. And by the way, Dee's best friend is a madam.

Kirk Mitchell has written a highly nuanced tale that gives exactly what I wanted from my choice for a Nevada book in my A Mystery for Every State project -- the landscape and culture of the state outside Las Vegas. There are no black-and-white characters in this book -- even the villains can enlist a little bit of our sympathy. At the end, the major crime is solved, but we are not sure exactly what will happen next-- except that Dee LaGuerre will continue to deal with ambiguity while doing her best to protect the high desert she loves. Recommended.

[Douglas · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have enjoyed the Turnipseed/Parker books writen by Mitchell and decided to try one of his earlier works - a very satisfying read