This seventh book in the Kate Delafield series is again different from the ones before it. There's a lot more going on in it, and some of it is even personal.

Kate has a new partner, Joe Cameron, and throughout the book we get to sorta find out why Torrie Holden, Kate's partner in "Liberty Square" and "Apparition Alley" is no longer Kate's partner. There's also a new Lt., a woman, Caroline Walcott. I hope that she's in the next book too, since the character, though not a warm and fuzzy one is definitely an interesting one.

The mystery is the murder of an old man at the La Brea Tar Pits (which we get reminded a few times isn't actually tar, but more like asphalt).

I learned some cool things about the history of paleontology (and anthropology). I'd heard of some of the stuff, Lucy for example, but Forrest put in a bit of the less well known info on finds through the years too. It was also interesting to see Kate teaching Joe (who wasn't just Kate's new partner, but a newly minted Detective as well) how to be a Detective, not just have them doing their job without explanation. ( )

The mystery deals with anthropologists, the La Brea tar pit, and Peking Man. It's interesting, but my favorite thing about this novel is the detective Kate Delafield. She is just so butch.

As an LA cop in the 90s, her lesbian identity is a secret to be guarded. She deals with all kinds of secrets in this book, both personal and professional, and she moves through them all with a certain wary grace.
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