By Alex Kava
Doubleday, $25.95, 304 pages
ISBN 9780385532013

Mystery writer Alex Kava weaves together two stories – one set in Nebraska’s National Forest in the Nebraska Sand Hills, the other in Washington D.C. – in the ninth  installment of her Maggie O’Dell series. Hotwire begins with a group of Nebraska teenagers headed to the National Forest for some adolescent fun. Self-professed techie Dawson Hayes brings a taser, and once the group gets high on Salvia and prescription drugs, begins filming the party. Hayes spies two red eyes and suddenly the teens are electrocuted, and the body count starts to skyrocket. Agent O’Dell just happens to be in the area, investigating cattle mutilations and tagging along with an amateur UFO buff.

In D.C., Colonel Ben Platt is sent to inspect a school cafeteria after a new strain of bacteria sickens a bunch of school kids. When he can’t get answers from the USDA, Platt and O’Dell contemplate whether the two cases are related.

Some of O’Dell’s spunk returns in this book, which is welcome relief after a disappointing showing in book #8. While the mystery should keep readers intrigued, the novel seems to end too soon, neatly wrapping up two intertwined storylines in an expeditious manner. I like this book, but I’d like to see Kava take her time and draw out the suspense, like in earlier books. It’s what makes her writing tick.

“The first flash of light came without a sound. Everyone turned, but only briefly.

The second flash crackled overhead. Dawson thought it might be lightning but it blurred into blue and purple veins that spread over the treetops like a crack in the twilight sky.”

Reviewed by LuAnn Schindler