Kissing Arizona: A Sarah Burke Mystery

Stoic Sarah Burke, financially hard hit by a bad divorce, investigates two cases in Gunn's middling third mystery to feature the 13-year veteran of the Tucson Police Force (after 2009's New River Blues). A friend and former partner, Artie Mendoza, who assisted Sarah with a substance-abusing family member, asks her to help identify a box of human bones found in an alley. The puzzle of who they belonged to and how they ended up there overlaps with her handling of a double homicide. Frank Cooper, who ran a family chain of house supply stores, apparently shot his wife, Lois, before turning the weapon on himself. The couple had been feuding over Frank's plans to expand the business, but Burke's digging casts doubt on the murder-suicide theory. Solid prose isn't enough to make up for a less than distinctive lead. (Feb.)