Wrecked: A Mystery (Josie Gray Series)
*Starred Review* When Artemis, Texas, police chief Josie Gray’s lover, accountant Dillon Reese, fails to show up one evening as planned, sending only an uncommonly terse text, Josie’s insecurities kick in. Picturing Dillon with his pretty young secretary, Christina, Josie waits until morning to check further and finds Christina dead in her office chair and Dillon vanished. Letting Officer Otto Podowski head the case, she learns that Dillon has been kidnapped with a $9 million ransom demanded from her. Josie suspects that the Medrano cartel, with which she has a history, is behind the kidnapping, but the size of the ransom stuns her. Only after digging deeper into the federal indictment against Wally Follet, a client of Dillon’s and owner of a local junkyard, does Josie pull things together. Meanwhile, even with the FBI called in, Josie employs a hostage negotiator with a record of success in hopes of getting Dillon back alive. Fields’ third Josie Gray outing (after Scratchgravel Road, 2013) is emotionally taut, building to a breathtaking climax and portraying, in the process, the danger inherent in a Texas border town and presenting Josie, previously wary of commitment, with new challenges. More fine southwestern crime fiction by an author who clearly loves the locale. --Michele Leber