“You aren’t going to be satisfied until you’ve uncovered whatever it is they are hiding, are you?” – Pastor “Hutch” Hutchinson
Hutch knows his wife, Deputy Tempe Crabtree, all too well because she absolutely will not stop until she finds out everything she needs to know to keep the people of Bear Creek safe. And this is a good thing for readers of author Marilyn Meredith’s charming series, as Tempe makes her return for an action-packed eleventh outing in the series’ newest entry, Bears With Us.
Located in the southern part of the Sierra Nevada, the small community of Bear Creek finds itself dealing with a handful of its namesake, as hungry bears preparing for hibernation begin showing up in apple orchards, garbage bins and, startlingly, snout-deep in a carton of Rocky Road ice cream in one unfortunate family’s kitchen. Unable by law to shoot the bears unless they present an immediate threat to life, Tempe finds herself coming up with creative ways to run the hungry critters off.
Even if bears were the only thing Tempe had to deal with she’d still have her hands full, but Meredith has provided Tempe with a plate overflowing with situations all requiring her immediate attention: the decline of a former town pillar into dementia, necessitating tracking her down repeatedly when she keeps wandering off; an amazingly self-important and obnoxious mother who expects Tempe to intervene and keep the “wrong sort” of boy away from her teenage daughter, and who threatens to make formal complaints of misconduct against her if she doesn’t; the suicide of a teenager and his family’s strangely cold reaction to it… yes, Tempe more than has her hands full.
It takes a lot of energy to save a soul. – Tempest McTierney
I was pretty good at scheming myself. If that was the way he wanted to play the game, I would be happy to take him on.
Ostensibly I’m here to talk about The Nameless Dead, the fourth and last in my series featuring crime writer turned investigator Matt Wells. So, before the knife cuts to the bone, as the Greeks say, let me do that.
“At some point we’ve got to stop trying to restore our lives, and start actually living them.” – Jonathan Hooper
“It was believed that only the death of someone young and without sin could appease the bad moon.” – Professor Reid
It happens far too often now. A child — sometimes a baby, often an adolescent — suddenly disappears. It hits the local news. Then goes national. Then Nancy Grace is spouting theories and pointing fingers. Overnight, everyone knows the child’s name. They see the same family-selected photo printed in their newspapers and flashed on their TV screens. Time passes — be it days, weeks or months — and the child is found. Sometimes the news is happy. Usually, it isn’t. And then the names, the photographs, the incident itself fade from memory.
It’s only for a couple of days, she told herself. Just a few days. Keep it together. I can do this. – Jodie Sykes
In the passing drama of life, I’m usually the heroine, but occasionally I’m simply a minor character in someone else’s play. – Kinsey Millhone
