Neely Jones

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

The "token black female deputy" in the lily-white Taft County, Ore., sheriff's department, Neely is stunned when she's elected sheriff, beating out the misogynist, bigoted good-ol'-boy who's reigned for years. Since she's experienced nothing but harassment from her fellow officers, she decides to turn down the honor. But before she can, she discovers an envelope filled with money hidden in her predecessor's desk and receives a phone call telling her she will get $100,000 if she resigns. The bribe, however, changes her mind, and she embraces her new post. Not long afterward, she finds the body of her lover, Jan, a biologist with the local Oceanographic Center, floating in one of the Center's jellyfish pools. Sickened and outraged, Neely vows to clean up the county and wages an uphill battle to link the hush money, the Center's operations and Jan's murder. She'd love to pin the guilt on Jan's gorgeous colleague, Andrea, with whom he had a fight. But although she dislikes the beautiful rival who lies about owning a gun and who has taken the backup disks in Jan's office, Neely thinks there's more to his murder than sexual and professional jealousy. When she learns that the DEA has pinpointed a drug smuggler in the area, and then the former sheriff is found murdered, Neely thinks she's on the right track. Meanwhile, she overcomes the department's resentment at her election and begins to form alliances. Wren's prose is often melodramatic, and the deluge of troubles Neely must overcome is excessive. Nonetheless, Neely's innate honesty and determination make this a good series kickoff by the author of the Conan Flagg mysteries (Curiosity Didn't Kill the Cat, etc.). (Oct.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

Wren's new series features African American Neely Jones, who surprisingly wins a write-in campaign for sheriff in apparently racist and antifeminist Westport, OR. At first determined to resign, Neely instead stays to confront antagonistic co-workers as she immerses herself in the racially motivated murder of her Japanese American lover. Neely earns grudging respect and admiration, both from deputies and from the public, as she handles the murder, a cat-kidnapping case, a rape involving the son of a prominent lawyer, and corruption within the department. Strong prose, good procedural details, and an interesting protagonist; recommended for most collections. Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Good thing Cornelia Jones is a practicing realist; there's not much comfort in white-bread Westport, Oregon, for African-Americans like her. On the other hand, Westport happens to be home to the superb Oceanographic Center, and Jan Koto, the good-looking, sensitive Japanese-American with whom Neely cohabits, happens to be a superb oceanographer. And "whither Jan goes, there go I" is Neely's primary operating principle. So two years ago she followed Jan from the San Francisco Police Department to the Taft County Sheriff's Office in Westport. Now those good ol' boys in the TCSO aren't just casually racist/sexist, they go at it hammer and tongs. How Neely got herself hired by redneck Sheriff Giff Wills is a mystery to her—one never adequately explained to the reader, by the way. And how, on election day, she manages to dislodge the entrenched Giff by dint of write-in ballots (who from?) stretches credibility further. Moreover, having won the job, it seems Neely doesn't actually want it. On e-day plus one, however, Jan is brutally murdered, and that changes everything. Neely knows she's sheriff to stay—despite a balky staff, a spineless D.A., a neo-Nazi rabble, an imported hit-man, and assorted other baddies—at least long enough for Jan's killer to be caught, for justice to be served, and for her to inch toward closure. Wren leaves her long-running Conan Flagg series (Wake Up, Darlin' Corey, 1984, etc.) for a new and possibly worthier protagonist. But though Neely has winning ways, helter-skelter plotting hurts her debut.