Julia Kalas Mystery
2 primary works
Book 1
She's short, round, and pushing forty, but Julia Kalas is a damned good criminal. For 17 years she renovated historic California buildings as a laundry front for her husband's illegal arms business. Then the Aryan Brotherhood made her a widow, and witness protection shipped her off to the tiny town of Azula, Texas. Also known as the Middle of Nowhere. The Lone Star sticks are lousy with vintage architecture begging to be rehabbed. Julia figures she'll pick up where she left off, but she's got a federal watchdog now: police chief Teresa Hallstedt, who is none too happy to have another felon in her jurisdiction. Teresa wants Julia where she can keep an eye on her, which turns out to be behind the bar at the local watering hole. The bar's owner, Hector Guerra, catches Julia's eye, so she takes the job. But before she can get to know him as well as she'd like, they find a dead body on the bar's roof. The county sheriff begins trying to pin the murder on Hector for reasons that Julia discovers are both personal and nefarious. Unfortunately, the evidence cooperates, but Julia's finely-honed bullshit detector tells her Hector isn't a killer.
She risks reconnecting with the outlaw underground to prove it, and learns the hard way that she's not nearly as tough - or as right - as she thinks she is. Koenig's debut is atmospheric, gutsy and fun, and Julia Kalas is an intriguing new heroine in crime fiction.
She risks reconnecting with the outlaw underground to prove it, and learns the hard way that she's not nearly as tough - or as right - as she thinks she is. Koenig's debut is atmospheric, gutsy and fun, and Julia Kalas is an intriguing new heroine in crime fiction.
Book 2
"Reformed criminal Julia Kalas travels from small-town Texas to Mexico on the trail of a missing persons case in the second installment in this atmospheric, critically-acclaimed series Julia Kalas has found a place for herself in small-town Texas. After being forced to relocate by the Aryan Brotherhood and witness protection, she's working on getting her budding construction business off the ground. But her newfound status as a sometimes-problem solver doesn't stop local cops from giving her the hairy eyeball when a dead body is found stuffed in the upstairs closet of her latest remodeling project. Not up for another game of pin-the-tail-on-the-murder-suspect, Julia takes private detective John Maines up on an offer of employment working a missing persons case at the Texas-Mexico border. The fat check he dangles in front of her as payment will be enough to set her up in comfortable retirement far away from the tiny Texas backwater, which suits Julia just fine. However, fate, as usual, has other plans for her. In South Texas, Julia learns that the dead man in her closet has been identified and that a warrant has been issued for her arrest. As she tangles with Mexican drug lords, shady surgeons, and a gang of Native American women with an axe to grind, she can't ignore the sinking feeling that things are about to get a hell of a lot worse before they get better. South of Nowhere is the action-packed follow up to Minerva Koenig's original and thrilling debut, featuring an intriguing mystery and a gutsy heroine mystery fans will love"--