Saving Cecil: A Cleo Cooper Mystery

Mims’s middling third mystery featuring geologist Cleo Cooper (after 2014’s Trusting Viktor) unfolds on a troubled North Carolina dairy farm. Cleo is working on a fracking project when she stumbles on a corpse. The local sheriff, with whom she has a bad history—he once imprisoned her innocent father—makes Cleo his prime suspect. As she investigates on the sly, Cleo is shot at and later chloroformed after discovering an illegal trophy-hunting scheme. Meanwhile, she’s remarrying her ex, Bud, in a lavish wedding she disdains and trying to reconnect with her estranged father. And then there’s the titular Cecil, a fossilized bone/geological discovery that needs to be protected. Cecil is the weakest element in a mystery that fails to generate much tension. The geological details hold some interest, as does the introduction of a Bitzenburger fletching jig (for making arrows), but the amateur sleuthing wears thin. [em]Agent: Kimberley Cameron, Kimberley Cameron & Associates. (Apr.) [/em]