THE LAST TEMPTATION

In the third of her Colorado Skies series, Lewis gives us a mayhem-filled mystery.

Kim Jackson, a woman with a dicey past, works as a tax accountant in Creede, a small mountain town in southern Colorado. She is drawn, as are others, to Laurie Beltran, a quietly charismatic young woman who holds services every Sunday morning in the basement of the town hall. Laurie, not the easiest of Kim’s clients, has suffered severe trauma and is very rich (trust fund), which scares her silly: She wants none of that money. In fact, between the traumatic event and the present, she spent a couple of years in a convent. Anyway, a local fellow named Trip Garrett has been found dead in Willow Creek, and the town drunk has implicated Laurie as the woman who hit Trip over the head and pushed him in. Kim knows in her gut that that could not be so. But what did happen? She is determined to find out and save Laurie, who is dangerously naïve. Laurie doesn’t want her money, but there are plenty of grifters who do, and they are closing in. At one point, Laurie and Kim are kidnapped, and the finale is a tense and bloody one. Will justice be served? And will readers ever learn the real culprit? Lewis is a talented, experienced writer, and Kim Jackson is a good choice for an amateur sleuth. The author gives her a sixth sense for recognizing bad guys and the courage to be a snoop when snooping is called for (“Kim had stared blankly, wondering if the priest had profited privately from Laurie’s largesse”). Kim’s own dark past is delicately hinted at—just enough to lure readers into Lewis’ fictive world. Much of the backmatter is a preview of the next Colorado Skies novel featuring the indefatigable Kim Jackson.

A gripping thriller with an intriguing hero and a mountain-town setting.