An interesting story about a woman , Caley James, with three children, an irresponsible ex-husband, and the flu. She's trying to hold it together, but it seems like nothing can go right. Even the furnance goes on the blink. The repairman seems incompetent and has "psycho eyes". That repairmen also ends up dead in the basement. Chief of Police Susan Wren is trying to investigate the crime, but she has so many officers off sick that it is becoming hard to keep it together before she herself succumbs to the flu. She must work with an officer she dislikes, but ends up helping in numerous ways. As Susan investigates, she learns that the victim, Tim Holiday, had only been in town for three months and no one knows much about him. It is clear from the damage to the victim's face that the killer wanted him unrecognizeable, but then Susan discovers that Holiday himself wanted to keep his identity a secret she calls in support from a previous colleague. Just who was Tim Holiday and why was he killed in Caley's basement?

There are a lot of twists and turns in the novel. It's got likeable characters and enough foreshadowing for the reader to worry about what's around the corner on the next page. ( )

I really like these stories. Susan is the Chief of Police in a small town in Kansas but she comes from the big city of San Francisco. She gets an offer to go back, and at first it seems like the perfect offer, that is until there is a murder, most of her staff/officers are out with the flu and the deadline for making a decision is only weeks away. Can she solve the murder and then walk away from all the friends she has made here - and can she go back to taking orders after having been police chief for three years.

I noticed the one clue that gave away the murderer but I didn't pay it much attention and so was surprised at who did the killings (yep, more than one, eventually). That to me is good writing, even when the clue is pretty obvious there are so many other things that qualify as red herrings that you don't get the answer.

I'll be moving forward in this series. ( )

OK. It was readable. It was cold. The story didn't really make sense.