Other Fiction

The Tumbleweed Murders

By Rebecca Rothenberg (completed by Taffy Cannon)

Passion, greed, deceit and murder surface when plant pathologist Claire Sharples discovers a skeleton buried beside the Kern River and finds herself drawn into events of a half-century earlier. This evocative botanical mystery moves between past and present in California’s Central Valley, exploring the worlds of oil, cotton and country music. Claire tries to unravel the mystery of the singing Cherokee Rose’s lost love with the help of enigmatic Ramon Covarrubias and his eccentric journalist cousin Yolanda, in a story dictated as much by the nature of the land as by the character of its inhabitants. These are secrets someone is willing to kill to protect, and Claire’s quest puts her own life in danger.

“It’s a particularly strong and well-conceived plot. There are shrewdly observed descriptions of the country along the Kern River, the locales as well as the locals. (‘The Oklahoma in her voice had been as ruthlessly suppressed as her original hair color, but in both cases the roots showed a little.’) There’s also an ingratiating mixture of history and folklore, with an emphasis on the area’s country music scene.”
—Los Angeles Times