Trouble at the Red Pueblo

Who is Spider Latham? Think John Wayne meets Miss Marple.

When Spider is hired to do some private detective work for the Red Pueblo Museum, he doesn’t suspect it will cause a rift between his wife, Laurie, and himself.
Museum Director Martin Taylor is desperate, and his son, Matt, is angry. Some wicked, faceless organization is bent on destroying the museum financially, and it’s about to succeed. After Spider arrives, the situation turns deadly when a killer uses an Anasazi ax from the museum’s tourist shop to bash in the skull of a charismatic playboy.
Everyone has a motive for the murder, even Laurie’s handsome, rich relative who cozies up to her every chance he gets. The local Barney-Fife-type deputy arrests volatile Matt Taylor, whose only real crime is putting his trust in the wrong woman. Can Spider untangle the web of secrecy and lies surrounding the museum and save its Anasazi treasures before the Taylors lose it all? And in the process, can he save his own marriage?
A cozy mystery with an edge, Trouble at the Red Pueblo is Book #1 in Liz Adair’s Spider Latham Red Rock Mystery Series set in Southern Utah’s spectacularly scenic canyon country.

From InD’Tale Magazine (four-and-a-half star review):
Spider Latham has a new fan! This scrumptious story by Liz Adair is a marvelously easy to read mystery, seasoned with rich descriptions of the red rock area of Arizona and Utah. The author draws in the reader with uniquely realistic story lines involving existing businesses and landmarks in the area. The characters are complex—so fleshed out and genuine, one would expect to see them firmly ensconced at the Museum, the local diner, or patrolling the area in an orange Yugo with flames painted on it. Readers will love the bantering dialogue between Spider and Laurie, and they’ll pull for the Stetson wearing cowboy deputy from Nevada. Well written, well researched, and well done, Ms. Adair!