I started Claire Matturro’s BONE VALLEY with some trepidation. She had written a ravingly positive blurb for a book I really didn’t like. And the hippie-dippie holier-than-thou stances of her protagonist didn’t sit very well with me. But once I let a few preconceptions go and started reading, what emerged is a pretty darn fun and tightly plotted novel of suspense that has a solid bedrock of fascinating fact as background.

Attorney Lilly Cleary is a high-profile lawyer, one used to winning big, profitable cases. So it seems odd that she’s stuck defending two small-time environmental activists who are being sued for libeling an orange grower. But one of the activists ends up being killed by a bomb. And then a man who is deeply involved in phosphate mining, and not at all keen on the environment, is found dead with his head submerged in a gyp stack.

He was planning on making an appointment with Cleary that very day. Funny coincidence, huh? The cops don’t think so.

Matturro rips into this story with a stylish fast-paced snappiness reminiscent of other Florida lawyer mystery writers (they get their own genre now). Things happen quickly in this book, but the author goes to great lengths to explain the logical connections between the occurrences. The plot is the strength here, and one looks in vain for holes.

Phosphate mining and the toxic waste it leaves behind are a real problem in Florida, and while it makes millions for investors, it also can seriously screw up wildlife habitat. The industry is at the core of the book, and Matturro told me more about it than I wanted to know, but I’m glad she did.

She also backs up her story with five pages of acknowledgments discussing her sources and where to go for more information – a practice more authors should take up. In the end, her setting, background facts and quippy writing style go a long way to making the reader like all the improbable characters, and to make reading BONE VALLEY a lot of fun. –Mark Rose

Buy it at Amazon.