Raked Over

Discount a 50-something woman as just a “pathetic old hag,” and see where that gets you. The arrogant young boyfriend of a former employee of Lily Raffenport, a mellow but irreverent Colorado garden designer, finds out when he dismisses everything about Lily as he trowels on the story of his girlfriend’s drunken suicide. That write-off spurs the reluctant sleuth Lily into action because she isn’t buying his self-important tale, and her curiosity for the truth takes her to New Mexico and back, before she herself becomes the main mark in a drug ring’s cover up of torture and murder. Is exposing the killer to find the truth worth the risk of revealing herself to the cartel’s mastermind?