Mountain Heat

Mountain Heat is the fourth book in the Charley Anderson Crime Series. Charley heads to New Mexico with her sidekick, Nash, after hearing about the murder of her ex-husband, Jimmy. When they arrive, the sheriff hands her a coded message he found in Jimmy's boot, part of which says to give it to her. Jimmy, a history professor, had been working with Native Americans in the state.His body, badly mutilated, had been left in plain sight. With the help of Nash and a homeless man (dishonorably discharged from the military where he had been an intelligence officer), Charley is able to locate Jimmy's vehicle, which has been thoroughly torn up inside. Then the bad guys find Charley.

Chile peppers are grown in the area, and she knows they can keep drug dogs from being able to smell the drugs. Several people, including Jimmy's other ex-wife, think she knows where Jimmy has stashed his money. Charley doesn't know what they are talking about. When she deciphers the code Jimmy left, she and her two colleagues drive into the mountains and discover a gold mine, which they believe was mistaken for Jimmy's stash, and a crop of psilocybin mushrooms. After being held at gun point several times, wrecking a sports car, and killing two people, Charley, along with her companions, is finally able to bring to justice a large ring of murders, drug dealers, a corrupt judge, and the corrupt deputy sheriff, who killed Jimmy because he got in their way.