The Pot Thief Who Studied the Woman at Otowi Crossing
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4.4 • 28 Ratings
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- $8.99
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
A New Mexico pottery dealer cracks a perplexing mystery in this “winning blend of humor and character development” (Publishers Weekly).
Hubert Schuze is an adjunct professor at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, and he has a fairly lucrative side gig digging up ancient relics and selling them. He also seems to have a talent for finding killers. When Hubie discovers a body outside his pottery shop, it appears the victim was stabbed in the back with something resembling a screwdriver. But the story gets a lot more mysterious when a video turns up showing the man collapsing with no one else nearby. Furthermore, a slip of paper is found in his pocket, with Hubie’s name and address on it, suggesting there may be a connection between the two men—though Hubie has no idea what it could be.
Now, the professor and pottery expert must put his sleuthing skills to work—while simultaneously managing his new role running the university’s art department—to piece together the shards of a baffling crime in this “breezy” novel from a winner of the Left Award for Best Humorous Mystery starring a “witty” amateur detective (Albuquerque Journal).
“[A] winning series.” —Susan Wittig Albert, New York Times–bestselling author of the China Bayles Herbal Mysteries
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Orenduff's agreeable ninth novel featuring potter Hubert Schuze (after 2018's The Pot Thief Who Studied Edward Abbey) offers a winning blend of humor and character development. Schuze, an adjunct professor at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, supports himself as a pot thief, "digging up and selling ancient pottery." He also has a knack for stumbling across dead bodies, as shown when he finds that of an unknown man near his pottery shop. The corpse has a puncture wound in the back, but a tourist's chance videoing of the scene at the time the man suddenly collapsed shows no one near enough to him to stab him. Initially, Schuze spends some time digging into the murder, which takes on added relevance when he learns that he might actually be related to the victim, but the focus shifts to skewering academic politics and bureaucracies after he becomes the new interim head of the university's art department. The anticlimactic resolution matches the lesser role the crime plays in the book. Readers content with the mystery being secondary will be amused.
