The Tumbleweed Murders [Paperback]

"And every night down in Aromas/ Sitting on the porch and talking low,/ Trying to get the Bakersfield station/ on the radio."

Lyrics by the late Rebecca Rothenberg are words on paper, but the melody is easy to imagine if you like California country music. Rothenberg's protagonist, Claire Sharples, is a transplanted Easterner who feels the pull of that music.

Rothenberg writes: "Claire, who had learned this stuff entirely against her will, said, 'I thought it was a Merle Haggard song.' A Merle Haggard song that had once stopped her dead in her tracks in Harvard Square and then sent her back across a continent. To stay." In this fourth and final series entry, Claire settles into a love/hate relationship with the Valley.

Claire is a plant pathologist working in the field for the University of California. On her way to a peach orchard where the fruit is afflicted with brown rot, she meets Jewell, a reclusive, long-retired country singer once known as The Cherokee Rose. The chance meeting with Jewell is followed by discovery of a skull near the peach orchard.

Claire already has a full plate. She's getting over a failed love affair. Her mother has died. Her stuffy brother is coming to visit. Her romance with the married Ramon is heating up. But the skull, a faded photograph, and the fate of a country singer reel her in.

Curiosity leads Claire into a labyrinth of lies and corruption, as an old murder brought to light leads to new murders. She narrowly escapes drowning, and almost meets her Waterloo at the hands of a runty tycoon named Tidwell, who disposes of enemies by tossing them into a hay baler.

Taffy Cannon completed this novel after Rothenberg's death, and the result is smooth as silk. I hate to see Claire Sharples go. She was good company. Still, as one of Rothenberg's own songs says:

"Now my life has led me on/ And left so many roads behind,/ But I can still recall them all/ So clearly in my mind."

The only thing missing here was a CD to go with the book. Love those songs!

Ramon and Claire visit Erasmo Campos, a fruit grower who has "dry rot" on his peaches. While there, the dogs dig up a skull with eyeglasses nearby. She tells Jewell Scoggins about the discovery and the woman turns deathly pale. Claire later finds Jewell dead. The medical examiner says she died because of a heart attack but Claire wonders if the death is related to the newly recovered skull. As Claire investigates, someone tries to kill her by pushing her into a rapidly moving river. Still Claire is prepared to find the answers to the newly found skull and how it relates to the Jewell's death.

Although Rebecca Rothenberg started this delightful amateur sleuth novel, after her untimely death Taffy Cannon completed the tale. The visual plot is very colorful with much description of the area in which it takes place. The characters are a zany and eccentric trio that readers will adore because they are different. Ms Cannon pays the ultimate tribute to Ms. Rothenberg by brilliantly completing this work so that the audience not only fails to know who wrote what, but enjoys every page.

Harriet Klausner