review by LFL reader: "Excellent mystery, keeps you reading. You can't tell who did it until the end. No romantic interests."

I've been doing a project to read a mystery by an author new to me from every state in the Union. Since I'd already read lots of [a:Nancy Pickard|49538|Nancy Pickard|http://www.goodreads.com/images/nophoto/nophoto-U-50x66.jpg]'s books, I couldn't "count" [b:The Virgin of Small Plains|180648|The Virgin of Small Plains A Novel of Suspense|Nancy Pickard|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172493157s/180648.jpg|1076272] for my Kansas book. So I chose [a:Charlene Weir|364430|Charlene Weir|http://www.goodreads.com/images/nophoto/nophoto-U-50x66.jpg]'s first Susan Wren novel, and I'll definitely be looking for more.

The book opens with a Kansas police chief investigating -- what? We aren't sure, and then he is murdered. We then learn that he's only been back from his honeymoon for 10 days, and that his new wife is a former San Francisco detective whom he swept off her feet at a police conference. She's already enduring culture shock living in a small city in Kansas (I'd say small town, but it's evidently bigger than Small Plains in Pickard's book). Now her parents want her to come back to San Francisco, her sister-in-law is pressuring her to sell the half of the family farm she's just inherited, and the mayor asks her to be interim police chief -- and find her husband's killer. She plunges into the job and soon finds that she's dealing with a lot of stuff she never saw in SF -- pigs on the loose and giant bulls among them -- but also that greed, drug dealing, and general criminality exist just as much in small towns in Kansas as in big city California. Welcome touches of humor enliven what might otherwise be a too-grim story.

Occasionally in this book, Susan Wren is guilty of actions which some might term "too stupid to live," but her state of grief and a prickly relationship with one of her detectives, in addition to issues with her father, a high-powered attorney, go a long way to explain them. There are great characters in this book, such as Sophie the cat lady and Susan herself. It's a very good first novel, gives a fine picture of the land, economy and people of Kansas, and I look forward to reading more of the series. ( )

I enjoyed this book. Having a new husband dies "in the line of duty" is tough, taking on his job and finding his killer is even harder, especially when they target you next.

I'll keep reading this series, Weir makes Kansas feel real and yet gives an outsider view of it (the new Chief of Police is originally from San Francisco, transplanted to her husbands home, a small town in Kansas).
( )

First Line: Definite disadvantages to being chief of police, Dan Wren thought as he headed the pickup along the graveled, hilly road past tree-dotted fields with barbed wire fences.

Thirtysomething San Francisco police officer Susan Donovan meets the man of her dreams at a conference. Within six weeks, she's married, she's moved to northeastern Kansas with her police chief husband, Dan Wren... and she's a widow. Susan gets herself appointed temporary chief of police and vows to find her husband's killer. When another person dies, the mayor wants her gone, but Susan manages to get a five-day reprieve. Will she find the killer before time runs out?

Mysteries set in Kansas are not common, and Weir skillfully guides us through a Great Plains winter, the vagaries of the multi-million-dollar bull sperm business, and a search for a toxic waste dump. All that was interesting and the pace moved right along. What didn't work for me was the main character. It wasn't until the end of the book that I ever felt that Susan had been a police officer on the San Francisco police force. She didn't use her brain; she let her rage and grief take command and lead her into numerous dangerous situations. I tried to take it easy on her, allowing her time to grieve, but sooner or later when a character keeps behaving like the blonde bimbo in a slasher movie, I'm going to hold the basement door open for her the next time there's a weird noise down there.

To sum it up: fine setting, good pace, and the murderer was not easy to spot; however, the main character got on my last nerve. Toto, I took the first plane out of Kansas. ( )