Description: Lola wants out of Montana but must stay as a potential witness. Her best hope lies in solving the case herself. But this sure-footed journalist who deftly negotiated Afghanistan's deadly terrain feels frighteningly off balance in this forgotten corner of her own country where the isolation compels people to rely upon each other in ways she finds unsettling. While unraveling her friend's death, Lola learns the hard lessons of a fraught economy and that human bonds matter more than fleeting career success. Ultimately she comes to care about the people she meets in Montanaonly to miss the warning signals that her own life is in danger.
Brief description:
Gwen Florio is a veteran journalist who has covered stories ranging from the shootings at Columbine High School and the trial of Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, to the glitz of the Miss America pageant and the more practical Miss Navajo contest. She has reported from Afghanistan, Iraq, and Somalia, as well as Lost Springs, Wyoming (population three). She has twice been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize; her short fiction, for the Pushcart.
Review Quotes:
"In Gwen Florio's entertaining debut, war correspondent Lola Wicks finds the greatest threat to her safety is not dodging bullets in Afghanistan but discovering who killed her friend and fellow correspondent in Magpie, Montana. Florio knows her territory. She gives us wind on the high plains and the soft and velvety nose of a horse hungry for sugar. There's fire in the hills, trouble in the governor's race, and a county awash in drugs. Magpie's the old West with daunting new problems, and the scrappy Lola Wicks takes them on."
-- "Leonard Rosen, author of All Cry Chaos "