Oklahoma Winds — Cary Osborne

In Oklahoma, spring brings storms raging across the American prairie, too often spawning tornadoes that lash the land. But this spring Sydney St. John finds herself fighting for her life against another danger, one from the past. When her intern's body is discovered in the archives processing room, everyone wants to believe the girl's death was an accident or a horrible mistake. But Sydney sets out to discover whether the cruel murder of today resulted from another crime committed nearly seventy years earlier, searching for clues as only an archivist can. Her search leads her to another danger, different, in the person of Ben Bartlett, grandson of the creator of the very collection at the center of the mystery. Is he to be her lover? Or her murderer? OKLAHOMA WINDS is an engrossing thriller that reveals the inexorable links present-day events (and crimes) always have to the past. We are forever connected to the history that brought us to where we are now, and unraveling the tangled truths of that history can shed a brilliant light on who we have become. Yes, OKLAHOMA WINDS is a murder mystery, and a fascinating one. But it's also a testament to the power of the past over our lives. Having had some experience with research librarians and archivists, I've always known they were some of the most brilliant (yet unsung) detectives among us . . . and the protagonist of OKLAHOMA WINDS is long-overdue proof of that. Sydney St. John does for archivists what Indiana Jones did for archaeologists -- and I can't wait to see what mysteries she'll tackle next! --Brad Denton, author of Blackburn and Sergeant Chip