'Day of the Dead' delivers

J.A. Jance's new novel, Day of the Dead, is a page-turner, meaning it's well-plotted.

Her latest murder mystery is set in Arizona, right outside an Indian reservation. The plot surrounds a 30-year-cold murder of an American Indian preteen and a non-profit organization called The Last Chance -- TLC for short.

TLC attempts to solve old murders, cases long-since closed with no murderer apprehended. In this case, the TLC investigator is a retired sheriff, Brandon Walker. The unsolved murder is that of a young girl named Roseanne Orozco, whose body was discovered hacked to pieces and stuffed inside a Coleman cooler.

The book introduces the murder, then fast-forwards 30 years to a time when Walker is bored and in desperate need of a case. Enter TLC. The group offers him a job, and he jumps at the chance. Walker quickly surmises that Orozco's death was largely uninvestigated because she was an Indian living on a reservation.

Readers of Day of the Dead don't have to wait long to discover who the bad guys are. Orozco's murder is gruesomely depicted in a series of flashbacks set from the perspective of the murderer's accomplice and husband.

Gayle Stryker, a prominent and rich citizen of Tucson, takes extreme measures to save her husband's reputation as well as her own after she discovers he has been molesting his young female patients.

Fresh from medical school, Larry Stryker works at a clinic on the reservation where he and his buddies make a game of sleeping with their sedated patients. When Larry accidentally impregnates one of his patients, his wife murders the girl.

As it turns out, the initial murder of Orozco appeals to both of the Strykers, and Walker soon discovers he's on the trail of a serial killer whose trademark is the dismemberment of young girls' bodies.

Jance, a New York Times bestselling author, is well known for her murder mysteries set in Seattle and Tucson.

In Day of the Dead, Jance weaves a mystery novel of bestselling standards. However, while the plot is tightly wound, the novel has a few flaws.

The author employs the flashback device to an almost confusing degree and the motives of several characters, especially the serial-killer couple, are not well established. In a murder mystery, the motive to murder should be a top priority.

Day of the Dead, while by no standards a timeless literary achievement, is nonetheless an engrossing read.