The Replacement Child: A Mystery

Even as the sadness at the loss of Tony Hillerman is still fresh and painful, a worthy candidate as his successor has appeared. It seems as though he passed the mantle to Christine Barber personally: she's the first winner of the Tony Hillerman Prize. In a story that could have come directly from his journalistic origins, Barber gives us Lucy Newroe, the Santa Fe Capital Tribune night editor who gets a strange and seemingly untraceable tip from an elderly lady who monitors the police band radio. Scanner Lady has heard something that may indicate police involvement with a crime, but everywhere Lucy turns there's a stone wall or worse. She gets the distracted attention of Detective Gil Montoya, but he's in deep with his own problem. A popular local schoolteacher has been thrown off the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge outside Taos. Could her rumor and his case have something in common? This book chews up the Southwestern scenery and embraces the cultural quirks and characters that are New Mexico. Wouldn't you just know that Lucy is the type who compulsively returns misplaced items in the grocery store to their rightful place? The richness of New Mexico's territorial history is just beneath the surface here, as well. This has all the hallmarks of Hillerman at his best.

I really do hope the author will consider writing another book about Santa Fe. This book was interesting and gives you an idea what it is like to be in Santa Fe and New Mexico. I was not able to put down this book and was lucky enough to be able to read it during a recent trip to Santa Fe, NM. Wonderful book by a new author who resides in New Mexico!

The characters, plot and amazing descriptions drew me in and kept me interested until the end!

I had entered my mystery novel in the Tony Hillerman Contest last year and was beaten out by "The Replacement Child." I was really hoping I'd hate the book, but it's a rich tale of woe and loss set in the sweeping New Mexico desert. It is easy to see why it won.

This was a great book. I do live in New Mexico and happened upon this in the Collected Works bookstore in Santa Fe and bought it on a lark, even though I'm not a huge mystery reader. But this book just caught my attention because it's not just a mystery ... I love all the fantastic descriptions of people and places in the Land of Enchantment. The mystery itself is quirky and fast-paced and interwoven beautifully with the culture and idiosyncracies of this area. I passed it along to my mother, who also loved The Replacement Child. I hope we'll see more from this author.