MARILYN TRACY – Cowboy Under Cover.

Silhouette Intimate Moments #1162; c.2002; SIM edn, July 2002.

   I’m not going to go back and scour through all of the previous 1161 to check them all out, but I’ve recently discovered that quite a few of the SIM books are criminous in nature (like this one), although usually not out-and-out detective novels (like this one). SIM, if you didn’t know, is a line of books published by Harlequin, known primarily for their romances.

   This one takes place near the Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, where a young recently widowed woman, Jeannie McMunn, is trying to start a working ranch to house orphans and disadvantaged children. Opposing her is a villain straight from the lurid western pulps, El Patron. The US marshal working undercover for her as a ranch hand is Chance Salazar. She does not know his primary occupation, only that she seems to be depending more and more on him every day.

   Stock characters, in other words, but in a cozy setting that seems to blur the artificiality of the situation. The best characters are Jeannie’s two wards: the thorny young teen-aged girl named Dulce, multi-pierced and sullen, and José, an even younger Mexican boy, mute but cheerful. Being a romance novel, the growing sexual attraction between the two main protagonists is inevitable, and it eventually takes its natural course.

   The finale, though, is rather brutal and gory, in strong contrast to the warm, comfortable coziness of life on the ranch, but you don’t have to read too many novels like this to know that everything will turn out just about right.

[UPDATE] 11-04-08.  This book came out in 2002, too late to be included in Al Hubin’s Crime Fiction IV, which covers mystery fiction only through the year 2000. Here’s her current entry as given in the online Addenda:

TRACY, MARILYN. Pseudonym of Tracy LeCocq, ca.1954- , q.v. Under this pen name, the author of many series romances, some having criminous elements.
      Almost a Family. Silhouette, pb, 1997. [Eleven-year-old triplet boys scheme to get their choice of a father, a Texas Ranger, by inventing a murder.]
      Almost Perfect. Silhouette, pb, 1997. Setting: Texas. [A single mother’s bodyguard may be a murderer.]
      Blue Ice. Silhouette, pb, 1990. Setting: Russia. [Art dealer Aleksandra Shashkevich’s most trusted friend is killed just as she is to purchase a collection of rare items from him.]

      Code Name: Daddy. Silhouette, pb, 1996; Silhouette, UK, pb, 1997. [The aftermath of a hostage situation that ends with four dead.]

LeCOQ, TRACY (née HUBER). Ca.1954- . Pseudonym: Marilyn Tracy, q.v. Add maiden name. Lives in Roswell, NM. Under her married name and with her sister Holly Huber, the creator of the Santa Fe Tarot Deck. Their father, newspaper humor columnist Robert “Bob” E. Huber, was one of two hostages taken during a 1967 armed assault on the Rio Arriba County courthouse.