Pay Dirt Road by Samantha Jayne Allen

 

Annie McIntyre is treading water.  She graduated from college and is now back home, figuring out what's next.  Home is Garrett, Texas, a small town she thought she was leaving behind.  She didn't think she would be back and working as a waitress at the town's cafe.  She also didn't think she would still be attracted and torn between two men she dated in high school.

The McIntyre family is well known.  Annie's grandfather was the police chief and everyone knows him.  Her father was a policeman as well for a while.  They live in town now but still have the old homestead farm.

Annie's life becomes even more complicated when a tragedy occurs.  Another waitress at the diner, Victoria, has been murdered.  Annie saw her the night she disappeared at a party she went to.  Victoria was drunk and flirting with some men from outside town; workers of a pipe construction company that wants to buy the land Victoria just inherited from her grandmother.  Annie looked for Victoria before she left but couldn't find her.  The next thing she heard was that Victoria's body had been found.  Could Annie have saved her if she had looked for her harder?  Can she find the murderer now?

This is a debut novel from Samantha Jayne Allen.  She gets the small town relationships and sense of boredom and frustration right.  Annie is a sympathetic character, searching for the next chapter in her life and caring for those around her.  The book has interesting subordinate characters such as Annie's private investigator grandfather and his woman partner and various women and men Annie grew up with but realizes she doesn't really know.  This book won the Tony Hillerman Prize for Best First Mystery set in the Southwest and is recommended for mystery readers.