Reviewed by Leslie Doran

Albuquerque author, Judith Van Gieson, has debuted a new book and series that should add more kudos to her career and enhance her already successful Neil Hamel series. "The Stolen Blue" features recent New Mexico transplant, Claire Reynier. She has moved from Tucson after the demise of her marriage of 28 years.

Claire has just become the Head of Collection Development at the Center for Southwest Research at the University of New Mexico. She is in charge of acquiring rare books. For a person who loves books, this is a dream come true. But like most jobs, there are drawbacks; Claire’s immediate problem is professional envy.

After receiving a phone call from her former mentor Burke Lovell, Claire’s new life is disrupted. Burke was the former head of the Center for Southwest Research and owns one of the most prized collections of rare and valuable Southwest history and literature.

Burke has decided to donate his entire collection to the University of New Mexico. To receive the books, Claire must go in person to Burke’s ranch in "the Blue." This remote part of New Mexico is in the Southwest portion of the state in Catron County. The trip takes Claire along deserted roads 250 miles away from her new home.

The rich Blue River valley is inhabited by 20 or so families who have ranched the area for many generations. People in this part of the state (not unlike others in New Mexico) take pride in their independence and rugged lifestyle, far from the maddening crowds.

When Claire arrives, she finds Burke in declining health, but his intellectual faculties are intact and his manner forceful. While she is there, Burke asks her to serve as his "personal representative" and then witness the signing of his will. The next morning, Claire finds she must do the job immediately since Burke dies mysteriously of exposure, after spending a cold night outdoors.

To carry out Burke’s last wishes, Claire will have to make three of his children very unhappy. The fourth, a newly discovered daughter, is chosen to run the ranch as a nature preserve. This news also makes the neighbors distraught since Burke wanted to see wolves reintroduced on his ranch. Cattle and wolves make for a natural but uneasy mix.

To complicate Claire’s life even more, the one box of special books she marked "valuable" is stolen from her truck. There are signed Hillerman’s and a rare folio of Ansel Adams photographs that are irreplaceable and suddenly gone. Claire throws herself into the search to retrieve these treasures. Along the way, Claire stumbles upon murder most foul.

Van Gieson’s lyrical descriptions of both the land and her finely wrought characters make reading "The Stolen Blue" a guilt-free and sensual pleasure. Her new main character of Claire Reynier may not have the sexy job of hot shot lawyer like Neil Hamel (VanGiesen’s protagonist in an earlier and very successful series), but there is something refreshing about a middle aged librarian who practices tai chi, loves her cat and books, and who can solve a mean mystery.

Watch for VanGieson’s follow up Claire Reynier novel, Vanishing Point, available February 2001. The story line: "Jonathan Vail’s novel made him famous. His disappearance turned him into a legend. Thirty years ago the young writer went camping in Utah’s Slickrock Canyon and disappeared. The journal he was keeping at the time vanished with him. Suddenly the journal resurfaces and archivist Claire Reynier, keeper of Vail’s legacy at the University of New Mexico, finds herself drawn into the Southwest’s most elusive mystery."