Short Investigations by Clair Poulson

 After Max Fisher and his cousin were brutally beaten by strangers at a fishing hole, Max vows his family will never be victims again.  He and his wife and daughter learn self-defence and become private investigators.  When a local rodeo star is framed for a murder, Max and his daugher, Patches, are on the case to try to find the real murderer and exonorate Rhett. But the killer isn't done reeking havoc.  As the PI's get closer to the killer, bullets fly, punches are thrown, and a romance blossoms.

Clair Poulson is quite a popular Utah author in my library. I had never read one of his books, so as I was browsing I decided to give this one a try.  I can say that I don't think it will hit the NYT best selling list, but it wasn't too bad and I enjoyed reading it.  The story is set in Heber Utah, and the reader had a noticable Utah accent.  There are a lot of Utah "predominant culture" elements, like references to missions and going to church. The characters are a little stiff, and the mystery a little clunky, but it was totally clean, and almost all the violence was off screne. I was pleased that the author didn't go with the most obvious suspect.  I thought the intereactions of the police in the story (except the one bad-guy jerk police) were more true to life than a lot of the more sensationalist authors.  The police were human with understandable weaknesses, but were trying to do a good job.  I could see myself reading more Clair Poulson in the future. (2018, 256 p)