Unsafe Keeping

The hectic life of a Boulder, Colo., weekly newspaper owner is skillfully rendered in Cail's second Maxie Burnell story, following Private Lies. After almost being hit by a runaway van, Maxie agrees to write a story about a neighborhood group trying to stop a developer's plan to raze a historic bordello and replace it with condos. Maxie and her co-owner, also her ex-husband, hire her landlady's grandson, a part-time college student who wants to be a journalist. On her way to see the bordello, Maxie encounters a fire investigator at an arson site. The divergent threads of the plot begin to connect when her landlady is killed by a runaway vehicle and Maxie discovers the old woman was the owner of the historic house of ill repute. After the bordello is targeted by an arsonist, the plucky, insatiably curious Maxie jeopardizes her life to find out who is responsible. (Aug.)