HIGH COUNTRY MURDER

Angela Biwaban, the Anishinabe princess paroled from a South Dakota prison but still wanted by several other states and the FBI for her freewheeling schemes, is delighted when she finds out that Madge Rooley, the mother of her stiff-necked lawyer boss Sarah Sutton, is a salty old bird who's done some serious South Dakota time herself. But she's horrified when Madge's truck, en route to meeting Sarah and Angie in Denver, goes over the edge of Colorado's Monarch Pass. It's murder, of course, no matter how much Madge's raucous, loving family insists otherwise. And the motive isn't any more obscure than the $400,000 armored-truck heist Madge had enlivened her sunset years by masterminding. Now Sarah and the rest of the unruly Rooleys need somebody to find the killer from among Madge's accomplices, recover the loot, save the family ranch from the clutches of fast-talking developer Matt Stockdale and his fanatical aunt, and rescue Sarah's daughter Karen from the clutches of a kidnapper. A tall order, maybe—but no problem for Angie, an accomplished forger, fabricator, improvisor, and liar extraordinaire who not only closes the case but gets to masquerade as mine inspector Janice Kanoshe, news reporter Melody Nahtanha, developer Janet M. Wanagi, and a host of lesser fry. Angie's second hardcover adventure (Corona Blue, not reviewed) is high-spirited and mind-numbingly complex, even if almost too easy for its endlessly resourceful heroine.