A Fall in Denver

Sarah Andrews's first Em Hansen novel, Tensleep, staked out new territory in the mystery field with its winning combination of geology, ecology, and mayhem. Critics and readers alike fell in love with Em Hansen, the engaging female protagonist who solves crimes while battling stereotypes in the rowdy and unruly male world of the oil patch. The oil field has always been a volatile place to risk making a living. But now, during one of the steepest downturns ever, hard lessons await geologist Em when she swaps her blue jeans for tweeds and heads for Blackfeet Oil's corporate headquarters in Denver. She's coming up in the world - all the way to the twelfth floor of the Cattlemen's Exchange Building, where everyone seems far more qualified than Em and where nothing seems to make sense. Why, for instance, does Em and not the knowledgeable and attractive Peter Tutaraitis get an assignment so important that it has corporate titans doing battle in the boardroom? And why, during Em's first day on the job, does a twenty-seven-year-old accountant named Gerald Luftweiller plunge from the building's sixteenth floor to his death? Was it a suicide, or was something more ominous behind his fateful plunge? When a temporary lull leaves her stocking her desk with paper clips and reading the company policy manual, Em has time to ponder her strangely unfriendly colleagues and the possible reasons for Luftweiller's demise. There's time, too, to reflect on the oil patch itself, the land of temptation, where power, money, and sweet-talking men can quickly lead a lonesome cowgirl astray, especially when old rivalries crop up in a new venue. Surrounded by people she can hardly trust, missing her boyfriend Frank,who is still in Wyoming, Em soon finds herself looking for a ruthless killer, not oil.