This falls into the good, definitely not great category. I was ready to give it 3-1/2 stars because I really liked the paleontology and geology and science-speak parts. But the ending was fairly atrocious. The story more-or-less plodded along and then turned stupid. In the finale the good guys go charging ahead doing stuff no one would ever do, and half end up dead... and rightly so. Then the heroine and hero stumble around for probably 10 hours being chased by the bad guys and gals and children and dogs, but cold and beaten and hypothermic and thrashed within an inch of their lives by cactus and all the other spiny things every living organism that inhabit in the desert possess they come out the other side intact. Which is good because all that death and near-death was the ticket to finding blissful and eternal happiness.

The main character Emily Hansen is reminiscent of Nevada Barr’s Anna Pigeon. I like the Anna Pigeon character, but Emily Hansen is a mess. This book was more about her soul searching and self-exploration than murder mystery... unless the mystery is who is Em Hansen? The other characters were okay, but all maybe a bit too sketchy.

Anyway, like I said above the story just kind of plodded along and a lot of various things happened like people being killed, people being chased, homes being ransacked and stuff being stolen, people being shot at, people being followed, and a child bride suddenly appearing and disappearing. It all makes some sense and it all makes no sense, but fortunately at the very end the heroine and hero overhear the bad guys talking about their crimes and tie it all together for us. You know, that’s how most crimes and mysteries are solved. Then the book just ended. The bad guys were still on the loose, but apparently would be rounded up and the dead collected, but for our purposes the story was fini. ( )

The mystery was interesting, as well as the subject. My only objection was that Ms. Andrews portrayed the Mormons in her book unrealistically. She wasn't particularly negative, just not accurate. I enjoyed the information about fossil "hunting" in Utah - I've been to some of the places described in the book and that was fun. I'm really curious to see what happens with the potential love interest that was introduced in this book. ( )