There are three books to date in the Vincent Malone mystery series by Ted Clifton. Fiction No More is the third. It’s worth your time.

Vincent Malone, just to jog your memory, is a former legal investigator from Denver, now living in Santa Fe, New Mexico. For a while he worked as a van driver for a local bed and breakfast, but with improving health and a new attitude and live-in girlfriend, he’s moving back into his old work. He still drives the van now and then, but he’s got new challenges.

Still, his latest case comes out of the Inn. A famous mystery novelist is visiting, and she asks Vincent to check out a man whom she believes is following her. He has contacted her in the past, she says, asking why an incident in her first novel so closely mirrored the murder of his own father.

When the man is arrested for another murder by the police, the author surprises Vince by offering to pay for his defense. Vince’s lawyer boss takes the case on, and the trail leads to that older case from the novel. Turns out the author hasn’t been entirely honest with Vincent – her grandfather had firsthand knowledge of the crime, and had described it to her. It all has to do with the theft of Native American artifacts long ago – and some of the people involved are still alive and dangerous. One of them is even powerful.

Fiction No More was a pretty good read. As I’ve said before, these stories combine hard-boiled and cozy elements, and the fusion works pretty well. An unnecessary anticlimax provides a bittersweet coda that I’m not sure I’m grateful for or not.

Cautions for language and adult themes. Modern attitudes toward marriage and cohabitation bothered me a little, but that’s the world we live in.