The Woman Who Knew Too Much: A Cordelia Morgan Mystery

Set against the stark rural New Mexican landscape, Johnson's strongly flavored debut introduces Caroline Marcus (aka Cordelia Morgan), a maverick operative who combines the lethal acuity of Carol O'Connell's Kathleen Mallory and the elusiveness of Thomas Perry's Jane Whitefield. Morgan works for a shadowy organization called The Company, and it's not at all clear that she's on the side of the angels. Despite a number of hackneyed plot elements (a mad scientist, for example) and enough story lines to fuel a trilogy, the author's talent shines in her depiction of strong female characters, including narrator Jet Butler, author of a feminist novel that has inspired a number of female communes; artist Kit Willis, whose passionate attempts to derail a water-rights agreement make her a murder suspect; and Morgan, the ruthless agent charged with ensuring that no one upsets the water-rights deal. When alcoholic gadfly Jasper ""Jaz"" Blankenship is found dead in his remote Pecos River cabin, Kit becomes a prime suspect, and Jet's attempts to clear her put the writer directly in the path of the dangerous Morgan. The tangle of issues--child abuse, lesbianism, alcoholism, drug abuse, domestic violence, environmentalism and corporate greed--tends to overwhelm both reader and narrative at times. By making readers appraise Morgan through the eyes of the apprehensive Jet, however, Johnson adds an extra layer of intrigue to her mystery. The narrative is uncommonly vital, and, in Morgan, Johnson has created a series protagonist with a memorably sharp edge. (Nov.)