Theda Krakow

"Gentry's appealing heroine, who gets ample opportunity to display her resourcefulness and fortitude, and the intriguing milieu in which she operates, should ensure both a warm reception and a speedy encore."-Publishers Weekly Ansel Phoenix draws dinosaurs for magazines, books, and museum displays. But one morning, digging with students out in the field, she unearths the body of colleague and ex-lover Nick Capos. Shocked and grieved over the murder, and not trusting the Big Toe police who've an axe to grind with her father, Ansel decides to investigate what Capos had been doing during the last few months of his life. She soon suspects he was working on a secret, possibly illegal project worth killing for. Her list of possible suspects grows by the hour as someone starts stalking her across the Montana landscape-a master predator who will stop at nothing. Why is Nick's fossil collection missing and why had he developed a recent interest in Baltic amber? Ansel must also deal with the challenges of her own half-Anglo, half-Blackfoot heritage; with her ranching family and the changes threatening their rural community; and with more than one Mesozoic mystery....

"Havill...quietly continues a project virtually unique in detective fiction: anchoring his tales of crime and punishment as closely as possible in the rhythms of small-town friends, routines, and calamities." --Kirkus Reviews Rolling stone Wesley Crocker seems a harmless enough free spirit when Posadas County Undersheriff Bill Gastner offers him a lift on the road and spots him a free dinner. Crocker beds down for the night with his gear on the high-school athletic field. By morning, 13-year-old Maria Ibarra is found under the high-school football bleachers a few feet away and Crocker goes straight to jail. His account of how he passed the night is full of enough holes to keep him locked down, but meanwhile a background check on Maria raises troubling questions about her life....

When an animal rights activist is killed by a hit-and-run driver on an icy Cambridge street, music critic Theda Krakow can't get too upset. Besides, Theda is busy investigating the rise of a dangerous new designer drug that threatens the musicians and fans who make up the popular club scene. But when Theda learns that the accident victim was defying her own radical group to rescue feral cats on the eve of a ferocious winter storm, she puts her own prejudices aside to help investigate. As Theda and her buddy Violet race to save these half-wild felines from the freezing New England winter, they uncover simmering tensions that make the activist's death seem more than accidental. Could a friend have been the fatal driver? Is Violet more involved with the extremist group than she's let on? Then Theda's cat Musetta goes missing....

Spiky freelancer Theda Krakow has fallen on a bare patch. Changes at the newspaper have cut her regular assignments and magazine work is slim. When a call comes in asking her to profile Cool, a gifted musician who's being oddly reclusive, it's welcome relief from both Theda's man and money troubles. But even with work at hand, there are problems: Someone is stealing show cats. And both the feline-friendly Theda and her friend Violet, who runs the local shelter, are outraged. When a kindly cat breeder is implicated in the thefts, Theda resolves to uncover the culprits. But when a murder hits close to home, the circle of suspects widens to include family, an extortionist, and more.... Theda is a great guide to the city, whether hanging out in her Cambridge neighborhood or enjoying the latest bands in the clubs, particularly Violet's brand of riot grrrl punk. She's less adept at sorting out her own heart, which largely belongs to her kitten, Musetta, but as a sleuth, she's razor-sharp.