Broken Trust: A Nora Abbott Mystery

In Baker’s excitingly fast-paced second Nora Abbott mystery (after 2013’s Tainted Mountain), the heroine finds a new job that appears safer than her previous stint running a ski resort: she becomes the financial director for the Living Earth Trust, a Boulder, Colo.–based nonprofit. So why is she having ominous visions of a “Kachina,” a spirit from Hopi folklore? And what happened to the previous financial director? When Nora examines the foundation’s books, she realizes she’s in another dangerous situation—this one involving missing funds, a strange project, and murder. Her dilemma only becomes clearer after her predecessor’s body is found. However, Nora is not alone: she’s backed up by her interfering mother, Abigail; her Hopi friend, Benny; and an old crush, handsome Cole Huntsman. As in the first series entry, Baker deftly escalates the stakes of her initially straightforward story, which takes a much more serious turn before arriving at its unexpected conclusion. (Mar.)