Hence, loathed melancholy. Professional stratigrapher and amateur forensic geologist Emily Hansen’s flown her gas-and-oil coop in Denver, and the million problems that dogged her there (Only Flesh and Bones, 1998, etc.) for the temporarily greener pastures of Salt Lake City—greener at least, she assumes, for the time it’ll take her to read her paper at the geological conference that hotshot George Dishey has invited her to. Except: (1) her host has been murdered by someone evidently intent on returning his blood to the ground’someone the local cops suspect might be her—and (2) she’s not really scheduled to speak at the conference; it seems instead that confirmed bachelor George had imported her as his latest bimbo. And that’s not all the swinging single was up to, as Em realizes when an awfully young woman named Nina bursts into George’s home and announces that she’s George’s other wife. George, it soon develops, was quite the liar, telling giant fibs about his fieldwork, the source of his well-financed solo digs, his checkered private life, and his ties to the Mormon community. But which of his hundred lies got him killed? The mix of generous plotting and leisurely plodding leaves Andrews time for long excursuses on allosaurs, academics, Mormons, and helicopters, some didactically effective, all blind alleys. Many readers will forget that George Dishey ever got himself killed.
