An Eye for Gold

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Packed with suspense, science and lots of gold, Sarah Andrews' sixth novel takes us from the eagles' domain high over the American West right down into the depths of the earth itself. Like a modern-day Sherlock Holmes, Andrews' engaging heroine, forensic geologist Emily Hansen, uses geological clues to solve crimes. Now, fresh from extricating herself-just barely-from suspicion in the investigation of the murder of a dinosaur paleontologist in Salt Lake City, Em allows a wily FBI agent to talk her into assisting the Bureau on another case. Em and the agent head into the deserts of Nevada: gambling and gold mining country, where fortunes-and lives-are won and lost. Their task is to investigate the high stakes behind conflicting reports about an endangered species on federal land, land the government has leased to a proposed billion-dollar gold-mining operation. But when they arrive, they discover the case has taken an alarming and lethal turn. The biologist they have flown five hundred miles to interrogate lies dead in her pickup truck at the edge of a lonesome road, and a key mining geologist has gone missing. What started as a simple fraud investigation quickly develops into an intricate murder case in which Em must unravel the secrets of gold, the desert, and an Indian tribe struggling to maintain its secrets. The wide-open spaces harbor a deadly enigma that is all too human-and what's at stake is not just Em's life. Andrews has updated observations into the dirt on dead men's shoes for the golden age of high-tech forensic analysis. An Eye for Gold is an enthralling, nail-biting adventure in the air and underground-her best book yet. Amazon.com ReviewForensic geologist Emily Hansen has come to Salt Lake City to see her lover and perhaps to marry him. But before she makes the decision, she is manipulated by FBI agent Tom Latimer into investigating a possibly fraudulent gold-mining operation on federal land. Another geologist is missing, and a scientist charged with assessing the environmental impact of proposed new drilling operations is dead in what appears to Em to be murder rather than an accident.Author Sarah Andrews's strength is her feeling for the arid landscape of Utah and Nevada. She is somewhat shakier in describing her heroine's conflicted emotions about her problematic romantic attachment and the strong sense of autonomy that leads her to take Latimer's bait and get involved in the case. The physical landscape is brilliantly evoked, while the territory of the heart has more subtle boundaries that draw the reader in to a rather convoluted plot. This is the sixth outing for Em, and Andrews's fans will follow her anywhere, even through the detailed and somewhat tedious scientific and geological explanations about mining and a barely more compelling explication of gold's timeless allure. The minor characters are more interesting than many of the central figures: a Paiute shaman, a wealthy woman who pilots her own plane, and the upright Mormon policeman whose proposal provokes Em's exploration into her own inner world. Readers can expect to find out more about him in Em's next outing. --Jane AdamsFrom Publishers WeeklyFollowing on the heels of the successful Bone Hunter (1999), this new mystery featuring forensic geologist Em Hansen is a disappointment, with too little plot and too much discourse on hard-rock mining. A scattershot beginning introduces an overabundance of characters. Then, instead of getting to the meat of the story, the author focuses on Hansen hemming and hawing about whether she should help FBI agent Tom Latimer on a case concerning Granville Resources, a gold-mining company, or hang out with her handsome Mormon boyfriend, Ray. This dithering seems pretty coy once she's fully involved in Tom's investigation. Hansen spends an awful lot of time crisscrossing deserts in planes and in her truck, looking into potential irregularities about permits, claims and other dealings between the suspect Granville Resources and the federal Bureau of Land Management. During most of this period, she's kept in the dark about the nature of the case, as is the reader. After 300 pages of random speculations and false starts, the plot finally begins to heat up, but at this point it's too late. Much of the information about the gold market, the history of mining and refining techniques is fascinating, but taken all together, it's oppressive and overwhelms the scrap of story line underneath. In a closing author's note, Andrews discusses some of the moral issues raised by mining and the depletion of our natural resources. Agent, Deborah Schneider. (Sept.) Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.