February’s Files by Rich Curtin (Lots of spoilers ahead. I reveal most of the plot and who done it below.)
This book is part of a series featuring a Hispanic police officer who works out of Moab, Utah, which is a gateway to massive red rock formations in Arches National Park and Canyonlands National Park. The main industry is tourism and many of the book plots revolve around solving some murder that may be off-putting to tourists.
Manny Rivera, a Moab police officer, is the central character. He’s a college-educated descendant of some of the first Hispanics to settle the area. He has a bit of Peter Falk’s Columbo in him. (Younger readers - Google it.) He’s quiet and unassuming and easy to underestimate. He’s a lot smarter than he lets on, a characteristic that helps him solve crimes. He appreciates the natural beauty of the Moab area and often gives evocative descriptions of the land where he works. He is from Las Cruces, NM, and misses his family, a constant theme of the books.
February's Files, like most of the books in this series, begins when a body is discovered by tourists. The sheriff reminds Manny that unsolved murders are bad for tourism so it’s important to quickly figure out who did it.
The books feature a cadre of characters who help Manny - the local newspaper editor, the coroner, the local representative of the US Bureau of Land Management, and a waitress at the Red Rock Diner, where gossip and important information often show up with your ham and eggs.
The victim is February Flanagan, a former <em>New York Times</em> investigative reporter, who chose to retire in Moab. He had broken a lot of big stories and the main line of investigation focuses on trying to figure out who might have had a motive to kill him because of one of his investigative pieces. Apparently, February was looking into some local issues that might have embarrassed elected officials so that was another area of investigation. February's estranged wife noted that someone had broken into his office and stolen a hard drive. She had no idea what was on it.
The coroner tells Manny that February was tortured before he was killed. That opens up the possibility that the ex-reporter was actively investigating something locally that might have led to his death.
Meanwhile, William Reynolds, supposedly a friend of the deceased from NYC, shows up. He fills Manny in on the various stories February broke, some of which really irritated some crooks who might want to retaliate against him. Manny doesn't quite trust Reynolds.
Manny visits February's ex-wife who had also been visited by Reynolds. She can’t recall her former husband’s ever mentioning Reynolds. She does mention that February’s car is in the garage. Manny goes to check it out and finds five file folders that contain information on insurance fraud, a wedding, illegal immigration, the Utah Department of Public Health, and a 1968 Utah bus accident in which 11 orphans died. He goes through the folders and doesn't get much out of them but he does call his retired journalist friend who will do some digging on them. Manny meets with the head of the local public health office, who happens to be a friend of his. She recalls February visiting her several times, just asking general questions about the agency. Manny is beginning to think that whatever happened to February Flanagan had nothing to do with his days in NYC but probably had something to do with what was in the file folders. He still has no idea what that could be.
At this point we learn about Bart Winslow, a computer programmer with the local public health department. He and his cousin in New Jersey have a lucrative side hustle providing forged passports and new identities for people needing such. Bart lives at home with his parents and wants to make enough money selling IDs to get his own place. He’s good at his illegal craft. He creates a whole background for each passport, complete with a college degree that he fabricates by hacking into small schools. They tend to have poor cyber security. He gives his made-up person a fake degree. He also creates a fake work history that way. He often uses the defunct Texas Enron Corporation for work history since most of the information on work history has disappeared.
Manny tracks down a retired reporter from NYC who worked with February and now lives in Colorado. Manny visits him and learns a lot. February was a top-notch Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter who was really good at bringing down corrupt operations. He was in Army intelligence for six years and learned how to investigate a story. February knew William Reynolds, the man who talked to Manny, but couldn’t stand him.
On his way back to Utah, Manny stops at Thompson Springs and visits the cemetery where the orphan victims of the 1968 bus accident are buried. The caretaker shows Manny where their graves are and Manny takes down their names. On his way home, Manny stops to investigate the place where February’s body was found and takes a break to enjoy nature. Rich Curtin, the author, has a gift for lyrical description: “Thirty minutes after the sun had set, the sky became a profusion of dark orange, crimson, and every shade of purple. The faint scent of sagebrush floated on the breeze. Soon, the mesa top became pulsating with the rhythmic sounds of nocturnal desert creatures, signaling the commencement of nightfall. Toads, crickets, cicadas and beetles began their conversations and flirtations.”
Manny goes back to Linda, his friend at the local public health office, to show her a 2005 picture of her agency’s workers at a picnic. She notes that only a few people in the shot still work there, and Manny dutifully notes who they are. One person who is still there is Bart Winslow, the computer guy who creates false IDs. He sees Manny's police car outside of his office and is curious but not worried.
Manny then goes to talk to William Reynolds, February’s bogus friend, and finds him dead in his motel room. Bummer. The same gun killed February and Reynolds so we have a connection, perhaps to something back in NYC. Manny is still clueless about what is going on when he reports to his boss, Sheriff Bradshaw, who wants the case solved before the high tourist season begins. Manny also has a weekend planned with his girlfriend, Vivian, but he’s worried that he’ll be working on the case all weekend.
Computer hacker Bart Winslow has an order for another ID. He’s talked to his cousin in NJ about charging more money for each identity but his cousin seems happy with what they charge now. We learn that Bart has used all 11 of the orphans who were killed in the 1968 crash in new identities. They had no family and he could easily get the birth certificates, a key piece in fabricating a false identity. Now he has to search and find someone who died, preferably with no close relatives, so he can work his magic. He finds a man who died in the 1960s who fits the bill.
Manny got a call back from Frank McKelvey, a retired investigator who really was one of February’s friends in NYC. February asked Frank to look up the names of the 11 kids killed in the bus crash in 1968. Frank also did some more digging and found out that about half of the names had surfaced as false identities for nasty criminals around the country. Manny is starting to figure things out.
He goes back to Linda in public health and asks her to use the computer to look up death certificates for the dead orphans. Normally Bart does that but he took the day off. There are none but there are birth certificates. She then goes to the actual hard copy files from 1968 and can find no actual death certificates there. The two adults on the bus who died did have the appropriate death certificates. That means the people are technically still alive. Manny checks with the state office of vital statistics and figures out that Utah public health employees could probably figure out how to hack into the state death database and change things.
Manny figured out who was in the wedding picture he saw one of the files in February’s car. It was the wedding of R. Meriwether Williams, a prominent local businessman. Manny also noticed that a rare Indian artifact was missing from February’s office, and that Williams had what looked like the same artifact in his office.
Manny does some more checking and notices that one of the kids killed in the bus accident was Richard Williams, born on the same day and year Moab’s Williams was according to his license. With some more work, Manny figures out that the dead boy was named Richard Meriwether Williams.
Hmm. The plot thickens. February Flanagan had figured out that someone was creating fake documents for lots of bad characters and using the 11 dead kids as the basis for the new identities. Once February was ready to go public with the story, he had to be eliminated. Manny’s pretty sure that his Meriwether Williams hadn’t done the killing. He was frail and limited from an accident years ago. February’s body ended up high on a hill and Williams could not have carried him up there.
Bart has figured out a way to get a lot more money. He identifies the local Meriwether Williams as one of his cousin’s ID customers and decides to blackmail him. Bart sets out his demand for $50,000 to keep quiet. Meriwether agrees and they set up a meeting.
Manny goes back to February’s office and checks out files that were on the desk. One had a picture from <em>The New York Daily News</em> that features a guy who looks like Moab’s Meriwether Williams. He turns out to be Boris Petrov, a bigwig in the Russian mafia, who was being chased by the police for racketeering, extortion, bribery and other nasty stuff. If ever anyone needed a new identity, it was Boris.
Boris/Meriwether develops real estate which he uses to launder money from other Russian crooks. He reports to his mob boss and assures him that everything in Utah is under control. As a perk, he has the services of Dimitri, a contract killer, who got rid of February and Reynolds.
Bart meets with Boris and they discuss the money exchange. Boris likes Bart and almost feels bad when Dimitri comes in, takes the kid outside, and shoots him in the head. Dimitri is instructed to take the body up in the hills and bury it deep. Dimitri is sick of taking orders and doesn’t feel like digging a hole so he just dumped the body. He went back to his motel and watched Turner Classic Movies on TV. He loves the old black-and-white flicks.
Manny and Sheriff Bradshaw agree that it’s time to pick up Boris/Meriwether, but the FBI comes in and tells them to hold off so that the feds can bring their people on to make the bust. Meriwether drives through town and notices lots of Ford Crown Victorias, a sure sign of a strong police presence He decides to bolt. He’s also concerned that his boss will kill him because things have gotten out of control in Moab, another reason to vanish. Meriwether is a champion kayaker so he decides to travel along the rivers to avoid roadblocks.
A hiker discovers Bart Winslow’s body that Dimitri had neglected to bury. Manny visits Bart’s parents to tell them the bad news. He searches Bart’s room and finds evidence confirming that Meriwether is really Boris. Meanwhile, the FBI goes to arrest Boris at his home but of course he’s not there and his wife has no idea where he is.
Manny figures out that Boris is probably using the rivers to make his escape. He calls some friends who are looking for artifacts near the moorings where boaters put into the river and confirms that Meriwether’s car is parked there.
Boris is navigating the Green River and having second thoughts about his life. He was just an accountant for the Russian mob, but somehow, he ended up in situations where lots of people were murdered. Boris has lots of accounting evidence on Russian organized crime so he decides to cut a deal with the FBI and get into the witness protection program.
Manny shows up on a raft with some expert river guides. He sees Boris, who has been shot in the shoulder, arrests him, and takes him to the hospital.
Boris’s instincts about his life being in danger were right. The crime boss tells Dimitri to go to the hospital and finish off Boris, which he does. The FBI is a tad late getting to the room, but they do arrest Dimitri.
Boris took two laptops with him when he made his escape but they weren’t found in his kayak. Manny and the sheriff are confident that Boris hid them somewhere so he could use them for leverage when making his deal. There’s only one place near where Boris left his car that was easy to find because of the location of a historic sign about the first white man to navigate the Green River. Manny of course goes there and finds the laptops.
Manny also figures out that Bart’s father, Henry, had been the one who shot Boris on the river. Manny advises Henry to lose the rifle he used so no one will ever figure out what happened.
Manny does have his date with Vivian and they muse about how people really are the sum of their actions, for good or bad. Bart’s false identity business, Boris’s Russian crime connection, and William Reynold’s trying to steal February’s investigative story on Boris/Meriwether’s secret past – all did them in.
Manny and Vivian leave the restaurant and take a moonlight drive through Arches National Park. All is well with the world.
Bob's Take So far, there are nine books in the Manny Rivera series. I’ve read three and they’re uniformly good. These aren’t great literature, but they are clever and well-written, with almost breathtaking descriptions of the Southwest.
The books are literary comfort food of sorts. They are also fairly short, 300 pages or so, with fairly big type. Of course, they’re available on Kindle and other platforms.
Manny is not a complex man. He is a straight shooter who does his job, feeds his guppies, and is loyal to people around him. He likes Dr. Pepper and eats a cholesterol-laden breakfast almost every day at the Rim Rock Cafe where he also gathers a lot of information.
Manny misses his family who live a hundred miles away. He wonders if he should move to be closer to them, but he really loves the land around Moab. His girlfriend, Vivian, also lives far away, which limits their time together to weekends, but that may not be a bad thing.
The land is a major element in the books - beautiful scenery with mountains, clouds, wind, and rain, nature’s scents, and lots of animals all being fleshed out in the writing.
There’s not much CSI or DNA in the stories, just solid old-fashioned police work. Manny puts his head down and just starts talking to people, and he figures things out.
All in all, these are among my favorite fun books to read, sort of a Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew for adults but much better written.
