The case that initially Sarah her back is the apparent suicide of  high powered female, Billie Cox, an oil company executive in the Texas market. Her sister is adamant that she must have been murdered, convinced by the nature of her ambition and by revelations from the “the great beyond.” Because the murder scene is too perfect, Sarah even agrees to meet with the New Age dabbler who attempts to explain that all is not as it appears.

Additionally, Sarah is drawn into the protection of Cassidy Collins, a teen age megastar who redefines the cliché immature brat. Her stalker has named himself Argus, and appears to her while she is performing on stage through the microphone she wears during these performances. He has threatened to kill, and it is her coming performance in a Texas rodeo that draws the rangers and Sarah into the case.

Meanwhile, back at her ranch, Sarah's daughter’s mare is very pregnant in a life threatening condition, and the countdown is on to reach the 300 day mark to give the foal a chance for life. On the home and work scene is also David Garrity, an FBI agent with whom she had worked in the first case. He has been brought in by the Rangers to assist her. Widowed, Sarah had fallen for him and has agonized over why he had totally dropped out of her life.

Casey has crafted unusually memorable characters and with a few deft strokes she makes them multi-layered and interesting. Filling the reader in on the back story as it applies to this story is extremely well done.

Pacing is the weakest point of Blood Lines, as the suicide becomes classified as a murder, there is entirely too much going on in this 291 page book to have anything less that unevenness resulting from hopping from murder to stalker to home scene to love interest and back again.

The murder and the stalker crimes are totally unrelated which creates the effect of having two short stories within one novel, overlaid with a warm home scene with an extremely likeable heroine with a challenging love interest. For many reasons, it is a cleverly titled work.

While this novel would have benefitted by more careful editing, nonetheless Kathryn Casey is an excellent writer that I would read again.

--Thea Davis