Judith’s review of Left Hanging (Caught Dead in Wyoming #2) by Patricia McLinn

A Rodeo Producer, Dead in the Bull Pen. Accident or Murder?

From the tip of the rodeo queen’s tiara, to “agricultural byproducts” ground into the arena dust, TV reporter Elizabeth, E.M., Danniher receives a murderous introduction to the world of rodeo.

Elizabeth, until recently a top-flight TV journalist on the national stage, has been making strides in getting her footing after a dizzying demotion to tiny—and entirely foreign to her—Sherman, Wyoming. But that equilibrium faces a major challenge.

The apparently accidental death—under the hooves of rodeo bulls— of a rodeo producer preparing for Sherman’s annual Fourth of July Rodeo catches the attention of Elizabeth and her KWMT-TV colleague Michael Paycik. Not only is it a major story about the region’s biggest event, but it’s being outrageously mishandled by the station’s egocentric anchor.

As Elizabeth and Michael start to dig, area rancher Thomas Burrell joins the investigation, providing background on the rodeo and suspects—and there are plenty because the victim had many enemies. But Tom has loyalties to some suspects as well as to the rodeo, so Elizabeth doubts his commitment to finding the truth no matter what. Not to mention that both Mike and Tom have indicated an interest in her . . . they might be okay with working together in a peculiar triangle, but the points of that triangle are starting to get under her skin.

Elizabeth was on her way to the top until her long-time love relationship ended with one of her network’s executives and all of a sudden she found herself working as a special events reporter in Podunk, Wyoming–or so it seemed to her.  Sherman was one of the few towns in that sparsely populated state that even had a TV station, and as is so often the case, she was the target of small-minded news personnel who resented her presence, who were scared spitless at even having her within a thousand miles of them, and who took great delight in blocking any attempts she might make to recover what was left of her lost career.  Yet even in this unknown location murder was afoot and as the facts began to come to light–facts that didn’t seem to make sense to a woman whose finely developed instincts as a reporter were coming back to the fore.  It also became patently obvious that with no cooperation from the powers that be in that TV venue, Elizabeth was on her own unless you take into consideration the two men who seemed drawn to her and who didn’t seem willing to let her be, either professionally or personally.

This is the second book in a series that is rife with complexities of a murder that seemed easily solved and turned out to be anything but.  It is about a woman who is trying to recover her sense of self, a sense of her professional worth, and one who has to look honestly at where she is in her personal relationships and try to figure out what her future might look like.  It is another fine piece of writing from an author who knows how to put a compelling story together.  It is also a treat for readers like me who absolutely adore the mental exercise that comes with reading a story that is constantly taking us in different directions.

I think that this is also a look at Small Town America, Western style.  It’s the land of cowboys and rodeos and horses and bulls and all that good stuff–a culture built around what it means in today’s world to be a part of the world of ranching.  It’s where so much of what America has been for generations is still prized and deeply embedded in the local culture and color.  It’s a world where relationships are important, where family is a priority, and where this cosmopolitan New Yorker felt completely like a fish out of water.  It is also a culture that, while it takes its time to open itself to stranger, is populated with hearts as big as the Big Sky Country of which it is a part.  It is the place where Elizabeth dreaded the prospect of rebuilding her life and where she began to re-discover the best parts of herself.

This is more a mystery than anything else.  The love story is subsumed underneath.  It’s there but it’s off in the shadows and honestly, when I came to the end, I knew that this was a story that would go on throughout the series and that wouldn’t be one that would be obvious or easy to figure out.  Nevertheless, it’s a marvelous read and one that Ms McLinn’ fans will most assuredly love and one that will have mystery lovers salivating all over themselves.  I give it a rating of 4.25 out of 5.

The Series:

You can read more from Judith at Dr J’s Book Place.

This title is available from Bell Bridge Books. You can buy it here or here in e-format.