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DEATH OF A HEALING WOMAN by Allana Martin

DEATH OF A HEALING WOMAN

by Allana Martin

Pub Date: Oct. 16th, 1996
ISBN: 0-312-14581-0
Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's

Texana Jones, owner of a desert trading-post near the Mexican border, is still grieving over the unsolved murder of her best friends when she finds the body of Rhea Fair: an aging, reclusive curandera—a healing woman—trusted by both Anglos and Mexicans. Were all these shootings just random, violent side-effects of the local drug wars along the border? The authorities think so. Texana doesn't—especially when Linden Fonda, a young journalist from San Antonio who was Rhea's last known visitor, disappears. So Texana travels a bit to do some low-key, credible sleuthing: tracking down Rhea's no-account sons; digging through Linden's papers (including her college thesis—a profile of Rhea Fair); and coming up with an Agatha-Christieish murder motive out of Rhea's distant past. There's not much suspense here, and the puzzle is thin. But this is a quietly absorbing debut nonetheless—with lean, atmospheric narration by no-nonsense Texana, a grim subplot about a rabies outbreak (Texana's husband is the region's top vet), and a persuasive portrait of bicultural life along a vibrant, violent border.