Preview Fault Line
In Fault Line, Sarah Andrews' seventh absorbing mystery, forensic geologist Emily Hansen finds herself in a heavenly situation-for a geologist, anyway. Here, Salt Lake City, on the verge of hosting the Olympics, is hit with a major earthquake, Em's first; she's delighted to see her science at work live and in color instead of in a lab like usual. Not that it's all fun and games-the quake is minor in terms of damage, but the specter of the possibility of a much larger disaster looms.
And the geological event brings her a job. For the past few months while trying to move forward in her relationship with her boyfriend, Ray, a cop in Salt Lake, Em has been consulting for and training with the FBI as an unofficial investigator; when a state-employed geologist is murdered hours after the quake, the Feds ask Em to put her special brand of detection skills to work on the case. The disaster already has the local government types edgy, and a murder at the height of the emergency gets even the governor's attention. Em must use all the investigatory tools in her arsenal to uncover what in the dead geologist's life-earthquake related or not, professional or personal-could have made her the target of a killer.
Action-packed and tensely written, Fault Line is as much about the very real effects of an earthquake on our modern lives as it is about the science of finding a killer.
There's plenty of seismic activity in geologist/sleuth Em Hansen's seventh well-paced outing, following An Eye for Gold (2000). Not only are the fault lines that underlie Salt Lake City proving to be active but the fault lines in her relationship with Mormon cop Ray Raymond are producing their own fractures. When a modest earthquake strikes Salt Lake City, its tremors penetrate through the geologic community, through the developers, builders and inspectors, and through the city's power structure. But the murder of state geologist Sidney Smeeth has even greater repercussions. After her FBI mentor Tom Latimer enlists Em's help, the stage is set for Andrews to explore the deadly confluence of natural faults and human ones greed, arrogance and hubris. The result is an uneven admixture of geology, romance and murder. Andrews gets honors for her graphic, frightening and entertaining use of earthquake science and lore readers may never look at rock formations with the same innocence. But Em's tortured relationship with Ray hand-wringing, gut-wrenching and protracted is overdone to a fault. There are plenty of culprits from an almost Dickensian ogre to corner-cutting functionaries, but Em follows the trail even when her personal and professional worlds seem to be on a collision course. Em Hansen is rapidly carving out a niche for herself as a forensic geologist (she lacks the credentials to claim that title yet), and may eventually make her field as popular as that of forensic anthropology or medicine. (Jan. 14)California's Sonoma State University.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From Library JournalForensic geologist Em Hansen (Bone Hunter) plans to take advantage of being on site when an earthquake hits Salt Lake City. Unfortunately, the FBI wants her to investigate the murder of a state-employed geologist that occurs immediately after the disaster. A fine series.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
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