#17 in the Christine Bennett series. The last entry in the series but ex-nun turned amateur sleuth goes out on a high note. The premise is a bit farfetched, because she will be accompanying her former mentor Sister Joseph to a conference in Arizona and staying on for some sightseeing afterward, she looks into the death of a high school classmate after his sophomore year of college while hiking in Arizona. The investigation she undertakes, although having the usual coincidences, is ingeniously tackled and her investigation of a twenty year old cold case is great fun.Christine Bennett series - When Christine Bennett is invited on a sightseeing trip to Arizona, she jumps at the chance for a little adventure. But the excursion reminds her of a former high school classmate, Heinz Gruner, who died twenty years earlier on Cinco de Mayo while hiking Picacho Peak near Tucson. Chris decides to contact Heinz’s mother, who has been wondering all these years how her beloved son, an experienced hiker, plunged to his death. Her one wish is to find out the truth–whether it was an accident, as the police report claimed, or murder. So Chris begins sleuthing – tracking down anyone and everyone connected to her old classmate. Determined to unravel a mystery, if there is indeed one to unravel, Chris will stop at nothing to uncover the dire secrets that exist about that fateful day in May.
This is the last book in Lee Harris' series of Christine Bennett. I was saddened that these books ended on a mediocre note. Her earlier books, for instance, The Christmas Night Murder, were wonderful. In this book I mainly enjoyed catching up with Chris and her family. Chris really was a snoop in this book, digging into a death that happened to an old classmate of hers, a boy that she hardly knew. For anyone who is interested in starting this series the first books in this series are wonderful. Her first book, The Good Friday Murder, was nominated for awards and was made into a tv movie. It was a beautiful book! This is a very gentle series that could be read by readers who abhore violence but still like mysteries.
