EDWARD MATHIS – Another Path, Another Dragon. Dan Roman #4. Charles Scribner’s Sons, hardcover, 1988. Ballantine, paperback; 1st printing, May 1990.

   With some reservations, mostly minor, I enjoyed reading From a High Place, the first in this series, well enough that when this fourth Dan Roman adventure came into my possession, I read it right away.

   And I’m glad I did. It’s not as moody and nostalgic as High Place, and in fact Roman is a lot happier with life in general. The reason? Somewhere between book one and book four he has gotten married again, and things are going super well between them.

   And in fact she comes down to the small Texas tow of Jericho Falls to spend a couple of nights in a trailer with him while he’s working on his latest case. Roman tends to keep Susie unaware of what his work entails, and she doesn’t really get involved in this one, either, but when it comes down to it, if it weren’t for the couple of night they spend together in the trailer, Roman would never have found the killer he’s been hired to find. Nicely plotted, that!

   This one revolves around a good old-fashioned backwoods feud and a Romeo and Juliet romance, but now the two are dead, shot and killed. When the old army buddy who’s the local police chief calls on Roman for help, he doesn’t pursue the killer with any amount of finesse, but once he puts two and two together correctly, he does exactly what he’s been hired to do. Who could ask for more?