Lowe’s first novel, the sixth entry in a series that began with five short stories, features an unusual pair of New Mexican sleuths. Burro, a schizophrenic, is susceptible to psychotic visions that sometimes “bring him a kind of knowledge born of facts and intuition,” a gift that comes in handy when he’s working on a case with his PI partner, Cinnamon. The two only recently got licensed by the state as civil rights investigators, who specialize in helping clients (such as children with special needs) overcome discrimination. Cinnamon uses the income from their investigations, and the access to information that they provide, to try to track down the mother who abandoned her decades earlier. The central plot deals with Mirage, a former roommate of Cinnamon’s mother. Mirage, who blacked out after a party and woke to find her brother, Lonnie, stabbed to death, fears she killed Lonnie. The far from run-of-the-mill leads and Burro’s distinctive investigative methods are the book’s main draw. (BookLife)