The Alpine Yeoman: An Emma Lord Mystery

Emma Lord, publisher of the weekly newspaper in isolated Alpine, Wash., is enjoying life with her sexy new husband, Sheriff Milo Dodge, but must contend with a veritable avalanche of soap operas emanating from the 24 previous books in Daheim’s alphabetical cozy series, most recently 2013’s The Alpine Xanadu. A woman has a breakdown following the foiled jailbreak of her son; another copes with post-traumatic stress disorder after a shooting and the collapse of a marriage due to alcoholism; and that’s just chapter one. The main action involves a corpse found by a nearby river and such questions as who is he, why is a deputy missing, and why are high school girls disappearing? Following the various threads can be hard given the many characters, all with melodramatic backstories. The book’s strength is the often-amusing dialogue between Emma and Milo, as they navigate their public and private lives. Everyone else is a blur who needs therapy. (Mar.)