Houston in the Rearview Mirror

Susan Rogers Cooper's Houston in the Rearview Mirror is the second in the Chief Deputy Milt Kovak series (following The Man in the Green Chevy), which she began in the early 1990s. Kovak is in his late 40s, an overweight, small-town lawman who hasn't had to fire his gun at anyone in eighteen years on the job. He pretty much runs the sheriff's department in Prophecy County, Oklahoma. He carries emotional baggage from his failed marriage and from his lack of relationship with his much-younger sister Jewel, among other things. He is a likeable, very human character. Secondary characters in the series are distinctive and well-developed, and the rural atmosphere rings true. Kovak is the first-person narrator. The book opens when Kovak is called to Houston to care for his niece and nephews since his brother-in-law Henry Hotchkiss has been shot and Jewel, suspected of killing him, is in a coma following an apparent suicide attempt. Kovak feels distinctly out of place in the city (Cooper handles the effect of the collapse of the oil boom of the 1980s effectively), both physically and because he does not believe his sister guilty. The plot of Houston in the Rearview Mirror consists of Kovak's poking around in Hotchkiss's affairs (both financial and amatory), looking for other motives/suspects and stirring up trouble. The killer was unexpected, but Ms. Cooper played fair with appropriate, well-hidden clues. I enjoy reading series in order, so it is comforting to know that I have several more books to go.