Praise for Excess Homicide: A Four Corners Mystery...

...from the Southwest BookViews, Autumn, 2003

More bodies open HP Hanson’s latest mystery than litter the last act of an Elizabethan tragedy—fortunately, the excess is in service of dastardly hyperbole with tongue firmly lodged in cheek. Hanson’s latest mystery in his Four Corners series begins as a brisk exercise in how many ways unknown evil can drop well-meaning but inept tree-huggers.

When the recently married Dean Hal Weathers (first met in The Dean’s Murders) and Annette Trieri, investigator at a satellite office of the Colorado Bureau of Investigation (Hal’s favorite investigator in Classical Villainy) begin to unravel the unsavory activities of a maniacal Senator with neo-Aryan plans, the plot takes off bucking and kicking. An assassination attempt on the President, lab notes from the Holocaust Museum, and more eccentric environmentalists than live in Santa Fe combine to divert pleasantly.

Whether insider’s knowledge about academe (Hanson has a Ph.D. in Atmospheric Science and 20 years in research and administration) or Annette’s working within the maze of jurisdictions and protocols of Four Corners law enforcement systems, Excess Homicide rocks along. Hanson’s writing improves with each book and this is the best yet.