Lottie Albright has three jobs, a full-timer as wife to husband Keith Fiene, a part-time job as local historical for the historical society and a part-time as undersheriff for the county. Needless to say, Keith is not real wild about the last job but he wants Lottie to be happy and thus just grits his teeth and worries a lot.

When a local social worker is killed in a locked room and no murder weapon is found, Lottie is on the prowl to find out who killed her friend and good and kind woman. While investigating the murder a neighboring sheriff claims "custody" of the crime scene and proceeds to arrest Lottie and her twin sister Josie. Sheriff Deal makes mistakes, big mistakes and ends up on the wrong end of a YouTube video as well as losing a recall election. None of that explains the death of Mary Farnsworth and that death is eating at Lottie.

Lottie is also dealing with an elderly woman who is telling her life story to audio cassettes, telling Lottie things that she has not told anyone in over 50 years. The story is heartbreaking, the finish to the book ties up most of the lose ends, and the reader is carried away in a complicated, intricate story that keeps you turning the pages.

Then there is the issue of a new Episcopal church that has an amazing turn of events, one more mystery that keeps you reading.

Charlotte Hinger can write, and this book just confirms that fact as the 2nd in a series.

Looking forward to #3. ( )

First Line: Happiness happens.

The Episcopalians in Lottie Albright's corner of western Kansas have worked hard to build a small church on a parcel of land that sits on the corners of four counties. The first day they gather together for a sermon, communion, and the confirmation of Lottie's niece.

The bishop gives an inappropriate sermon filled with hellfire and brimstone, and everyone is thunderstruck when beloved Reverend Mary Farnsworth drops the chalice during communion and locks herself in the anteroom. Lottie's sister Josie, a psychologist, stays after the service to comfort Mary, but Lottie orders her sister to leave when the locked door is opened and Mary's body is found on the floor. Frightened by the bishop's strange rituals for disposing of the spilled wine, Lottie would like nothing better than to leave, but as undersheriff, she must stay to attend to the death.

An elderly lady who attended the service insists that a man kneeling next to her scared Reverend Mary into a heart attack which gives credence to Lottie's belief that this was not a natural death. Calling in other law enforcement agencies, Lottie discovers many more questions than answers as the investigation moves forward.

The first book in this series, Deadly Descent, relied a great deal on Lottie's skill as an historian digging through old records, documents, and genealogical charts. In Lethal Lineage, Lottie finds herself focusing more on the oral histories of several county residents. She also realizes that she's bitten off more than she can chew in her work for the county historical society and as undersheriff. It is something on which both she and her husband must come to some sort of agreement while Lottie tries to find a killer and deal with a sheriff whose family has ridden roughshod over a neighboring county for decades.

Hinger brings sparsely populated western Kansas to life by seamlessly including details of how poor counties constantly battle budget constraints as well as how feuds, secrets and lies never seem to die out no matter how many decades pass. (Have you ever stopped to wonder how many fewer books would be written if people everywhere would simply tell the truth?)

Her three main characters-- Lottie, her sister Josie, and her husband Keith-- are strong, vivid people who care for one another deeply although they don't always see eye-to-eye. I feel as if I've known them my whole life.

In just two books I've fallen in love with the setting, the characters, and the way Charlotte Hinger can tell a story. Lethal Lineage stands alone quite well, but I think it would be best to start at the beginning so you can fully appreciate the fascinating work Charlotte does at the historical society, as well as the dynamics between the characters. This is a highly recommended book in a highly recommended series. I can't wait for book number three! ( )

This was a good little cozy that kept you guessing as to who the bad guy was and the twist at the end was great and unexpected! I found out after I was almost done that this is actually the second book in the series so I plan on going back and finding the first one. I enjoyed this enough to want to read more about Lottie and her little town. This one was a bit different from other cozies because Lottie is actually a police officer but some things were alluded to like how she became one that I’m guessing I will find out by going back and reading book #1.

I liked that she is a historian and undersheriff and how in this story she brought the two careers together to figure things out. So ,a little town, a historian turned police officer, and a dead body sounds like a great formula and I have to say this author pulled it off well some cozies you can see the end clearly but this really kept me guessing. I recommend this book if you enjoy cozy mysteries.

I listened to this one on audio narrated by the wonderful Karen White who as always does a great job!

3 ½ Stars ( )

The focus of this novel is a plot of forty acres of land which a small Evangelical community has bought and the church they have built there. The first ever service is to be conducted by their regular priest, Mary Farnworth. To make the service memorable, a teenage girl is to be confirmed by Bishop Talesbury (rather than the proper diocesan Bishop Rice). Talesbury preaches a hellfire and brimstone sermon rather than one appropriate to the occasion, which rather shocks his congregation. During communion, Mary Farnworth drops the chalice and spills the wine. She scurries off to the vestry. After the service she is found dead. There are nom signs of forced entry or violence. Later, forensic examination establishes that she died from the poison of the South American Poison Dart Frog.
Lottie Albright, Deputy Sheriff, and her twin sister Josie were present during the service. They call in the sheriff. Later the same day coroner says he can find no information about her next-of-kin. Lottie and Josie let themselves into Mary’s office using her keys. Mary has been a social worker for 19 years and, even though they can find huge amounts of social worker papers, they can find nothing relating to Mary at all. While there, Sheriff Irwin Deal of an adjacent county bursts in and, using pretty violent language and behaviour, he arrests them. Josie uses her Blackberry to video his behaviour. They use their obligatory phone call from the jail to contact their sheriff and Lottie’s husband. Josie manages to download her video onto YouTube. Next morning the magistrate frees them immediately and reprimands Sheriff Deal severely. Josie’s husband serves Deal with a write charging him with, among other things, wrongful arrest.
Lottie and her sheriff search Mary’s home and again find nothing about her personal life or about next-of-kin. In fact, all they find out about is her social work. There isn’t even anything about her work as a priest. Nor are there any educational certificates. Lottie contacts her Bishop Rice only to discover that his office knows nothing about either Mary or Bishop Talesbury.
Lottie spends some time each week at the local library collecting peoples’ memories of the area. Chip Ferguson a fairly old, single cowboy has spent his life chasing money and is now probably the wealthiest man in the area. Then Edna Mavey, an old woman, calls in. Over a number of sessions both at the library and using a tape records at home, she tells her story. Her first husband, who lived in Iowa, was a mean man who was cruel to his animals, her and their two children, a boy and girl. She did what she could to protect them. At one point she takes the children to her sister’s house and stays there for a while. Her husband tempts her back. Almost immediately he has her committed to a lunatic asylum where she stays for three and a half years. Her sister and the children write to her from time to time. In the end she manages to walk out of the hospital and catch a bus to Kansas where she starts a new life for herself. She tells her sister to tell the children that she has died but to carry on letting her know what they are doing by letter. She leans that her son died in Vietnam and that her daughter went off the rails and lost contact with her sister. Meanwhile, she has bigamously married a Kansas man and had a son with him. Neither son nor long-dead husband know anything about the first family.
Meanwhile, Lottie has received threatening letters and phone calls. Her husband’s crops are ploughed up and one of his cows is killed cruelly. Her sister and husband are helping the local people get an election to deprive Sheriff Deal of his post. And they are successful. He is also heavily fined for wrongfully arresting the pair of them.
Then Sheriff Deal and Bishop Talesbury are seen at the church. It turns out that Bishop Talesbury has a valid deed of ownership to the land, and, hence, their church. Chip Ferguson unsuccessfully tries to buy the land from Talesbury. Shortly after, he is found dead in his car, having been killed by a dart tipped with poison from an African poison dart frog.
Edna, becoming increasingly frail, has a stroke and has to be put in a nursing home. Before she goes she tells Lottie that Mary Farnsworth was her long lost daughter.
The climax of the story comes when ex-sheriff Deal holes out in the church and threatens to kill Lottie’s husband. She and her sister arrive, she tries to shoot Deal but misses. Then Bishop Talesbury creeps in at the back and, using a blowpipe and curare tipped arrow, darts Deal.
If you think this is the end, you are in for a big surprise! There is an amazing conclusion to this fast-paced well-written novel. I look forward to reading more Lottie Albright Mysteries. ( )

A combination church dedication and confirmation ought to be a happy occasion, but the celebration comes to a sudden end with the death of one of the officiants. Lottie Albright discovers the body in a locked room, and, since she is undersheriff of one of the four small western Kansas counties where the building is strategically located, she sets in motion the usual proceedings for an unattended death. The church's location soon becomes a problem. Since the building straddles county lines, it isn't clear who has jurisdiction to investigate the death, and the unlikeable sheriff of a neighboring county challenges Lottie for control of the investigation.

This is the second book in a series featuring Lottie Albright, and it's one I've had my eye on since I first heard about the first book. Lottie is a historian who works at the county historical society, and these mysteries have a genealogical aspect. Genealogy is one of my hobbies, and I'm always on the lookout for books with a genealogy angle. I liked some aspects of the book, but it has some major flaws.

Lottie's husband and twin sister start a joint project that causes problems when they learn that they have no legal standing to do what they're attempting to do. I realized at once that they shouldn't have been doing what they were doing, and I found it hard to believe that professional people (a veterinarian and a mental health professional) would be ignorant of basic civics.

Lottie describes herself as a lapsed Episcopalian. However, she was one of the leaders in the fund-raising project for the new building, and she volunteered for a lay position in the church. (I'm not Episcopalian and I've already forgotten the term used in the book, but it involves preparing the physical environment for the service and cleaning up afterward, following prescribed customs.) Title research uncovered problems with the title for the land on which the church is built, yet the church committee ignored the problems and built anyway.

Part of the outcome was predictable, and part of it was unbelievable. The international conspiracy was too much for me to swallow. I think it would have been better to leave out the international thread and concentrate on the personalities and relationships of the characters/suspects.

I'm glad I had an opportunity to try this series, and if it continues I'll be willing to try a later book in the series. I think there are elements in the book that, if developed further, could turn it into a successful cozy series. One way to make that happen would be to cut down on the number of action threads and spend more time on character development.

This review is based on an advance electronic copy provided by the publisher through NetGalley. ( )