Dark Signal

Eccentric, disarmingly human characters lift Baker’s engrossing second mystery featuring Nebraska rancher Kate Fox (after 2016’s Stripped Bare). Less than an hour after Kate is sworn in as sheriff of Grand County, a place “where cattle outnumber people by more than 60 to one,” she gets a call from a police dispatcher alerting her to a possible death involving a railroad train. At the scene, Kate finds the conductor huddled close to the idling engine in a state of shock; inside the engine cab is the decapitated body of the engineer. When Trey Ridnoir, the patronizing state trooper who arrives soon afterward, declares the death an accident, Kate steps up and shows him evidence that indicates murder. At every turn, Kate is scoffed at and advised to back down and let the state patrol or the former sheriff, Kate’s ex-husband, handle the case. Nevertheless, she persists. Direct, practical Kate is the kind of protagonist many readers have been waiting for: she handles the frequent, casual sexism with grace and then gets down to the job at hand. Agent: Marlene Stringer, Stringer Literary. (Oct.)