Called Home: A Case for Moroni Traveler

Abounding in Mormon doctrine and lore, this fourth Moroni Traveler mystery looks at a strong female network existing within a male-dominated society. After being acquitted of sexual harassment charges brought by former lover Claire Bennion, the Salt Lake City PI is hired by Ellis Nibley to determine why Nibley's wife committed suicide. Mo arrives in rural Sanpete County, Utah, where Nibley lives and where, coincidentally, Claire was raised, to find the nearby mountains ablaze and the townsmen on the fire lines. Mo learns that the Mormon town's only physician hanged himself a week before Mo was hired. But the women of the town close ranks, refusing to divulge what they had written in letters to the state medical board and why the town druggist and his wife are shunned, factors that Mo believes are connected to the deaths. Then Claire, who after the trial taunted him about a son she says Mo fathered, is found with her throat slit and her body slung over Mo's Jeep like a hunting trophy. Swearing vengeance, Mo and his father, who is also his partner, follow an ingenious plan to elicit information from the women without compromising their Mormon teachings. The mystery of the missing son remains, presumably for the next book, which readers may expect to be just as exciting and intriguing. (May)