Christine Barber
Christine Barber is an award-winning journalist as well as a certified emergency medical technician and firefighter.
She lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
She has worked as an editor at the Santa Fe New Mexican and a writer for the Albuquerque Journal and Gallup Independent.
She is the author of The Replacement Child.
She lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
She has worked as an editor at the Santa Fe New Mexican and a writer for the Albuquerque Journal and Gallup Independent.
She is the author of The Replacement Child.
The Bone Fire: A Mystery
Every year, the people of Santa Fe gather together for the burning of a four-story-tall figure called Zozobra, a local custom that that takes place during the Fiesta de Santa Fe. Early the next morning, as the sounds of the Fiesta celebration still echo through the streets, skull is discovered in the ashes of Zozobra.
As Detective Sergeant Gilbert Montoya starts to investigate the case, disturbing displays of human bones begin appearing at religious sites around the city. With a possible psychopath on the loose, Gil goes to newspaper editor Lucy Newroe for help to find the person responsible in a case that will take them into the highest and lowest levels of Santa Fe society.
Christine Barber was highly praised for her first book, The Replacement Child, which won the first annual Tony Hillerman Prize and was named a New York Times Notable Book. An intriguing, impressive new mystery, The Bone Fire captures the colorful New Mexican landscape and the unique world of Santa Fe.
The Replacement Child: A Mystery
Late on a Monday night, editor Lucy Newroe answers the phone in the Capital Tribune newsroom. The caller is the notorious Scanner Lady---an anonymous elderly tipster whose hobby is to phone the newspaper with gossip from her police scanner. The old woman tells Lucy she heard two Santa Fe cops discussing a dead body. But when Lucy checks out the tip, she discovers Scanner Lady has been killed.
She tries to enlist the help of Detective Gil Montoya, but his mind is on another death. He has just been handed the case of Melissa Baca, a seventh-grade teacher whose body was thrown off the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge. Over the course of the next few days, as Lucy and Gil hunt down the culprits in each murder, they discover their cases are intertwined in the most intimate ways.
Rich with details of New Mexico and the people who live there, The Replacement Child is the perfect novel for anyone who has fallen in love with the Southwest that Tony Hillerman described so artfully in his Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee mysteries