Albuquerque, New Mexico May 15, 2025 (Issuewire.com) - Lets not kid ourselvespolitical fiction rarely cuts deep anymore. But every once in a while, a book doesnt just flirt with political satire or social commentaryit takes it out for drinks, interrogates it under a hot lamp, and leaves readers breathless. Rosalie Rayburns Windswept, the third novel in her critically acclaimed Digger Doyle Mystery series, is exactly that kind of novel.
Part political intrigue, part murder mystery, and wholly a reflection of our time, Windswept introduces stakes that go far beyond a dead bodyand trust me, there is one. At the foot of a wind turbine, no less.
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Rayburn, a former investigative journalist herself, writes with the kind of eye only decades in newsrooms and bureaucratic boardrooms can hone. The protagonist, Elizabeth Digger Doyle, is a former reporter turned reluctant political spouse, who gets pulledno, draggedinto a web of danger involving her wife, Maria, a newly elected state legislator, and a charismatic politician named Carmen Lawlor who ends up very dead.
Is it an accident? A suicide? A warning?
Rayburn doesnt offer easy answersshe crafts layered ones. Much like New Mexicos treacherous winds, the story teases, howls, and shifts directions without warning. The reader is left gripping the page as Digger navigates corrupt developers, climate controversies, oil and gas backroom deals, and yes, the kind of female rivalry that runs deeper than campaign lines and lipstick shades.
Whats refreshing here is that Rayburn refuses to sanitize women. Her characters are flawed, bold, and at times politically dangerous. Diggers wife, Maria, is caught between loyalty to her mentor and the magnetic pull of ambition. Carmen Lawlor, the deceased, was a progressive climate champion with powerful enemies and a suspicious pastincluding a buried cold case and a sister with secrets of her own.
If this feels too real, thats because it is. Rayburns understanding of New Mexico politicsland leases, lobbyist pressure, and local newsrooms gasping for resourcesmirrors a national tension few authors dare to touch.
And then theres the writing.
Wit meets grit on every page. Rayburns dialogue is sharp, and her sense of place is immersive without being indulgent. One moment youre inside a queer bar lit by crepe-paper flowers, the next youre on the scorching plains staring up at a turbine that hums like a ticking bomb. Diggers internal monologue, laced with dry humor and fatigue, could belong to any burned-out journalist or principled Gen-Xer trying to hold the line in a world slipping sideways.
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But Windswept isnt just clever crime fiction. Its an LGBTQ+ political thriller that doesnt pander. The romantic relationship between Digger and Maria is intimate, messy, and, above all, real. This isnt a token nod toward inclusionits a front-row seat to the very real sacrifices queer women in public life make just to stay standing.
And the mystery? It works. It genuinely works.
Rayburn doesnt rely on plot twists for shock value. Instead, she builds a slow crescendo of dread. Cluesmany hidden in character mannerisms, offhand remarks, or old newspaper clippingspile up until they tip over. The murder investigation, paired with Diggers journalistic instincts, creates a story thats as much about uncovering corruption as it is about personal betrayal.
By the time the sheriff arrives, and we start asking the big questionswho benefits from Carmens death, what was she hiding, and why nowthe story has already done something rare: its made you care.
Read the book that readers are calling timely, tense, and unforgettable. Buy Windswept today.
It would be easy to dismiss Windswept as a regional mystery, a desert noir. But that would miss the national implications. In an era where women journalists are under attack, LGBTQ+ politicians are targeted, and climate change becomes a political powder keg, this book lands like a thunderclap.
Windswept isnt just a mystery. Its a mirror. And Rosalie Rayburn holds it steady. The message? Silence is no longer an option. Whether youre a reporter, a voter, or a reader.
About the Author
Rosalie Rayburn is a former journalist who spent decades reporting across the globefrom Ireland to New Mexico. Since retiring, shes walked the Camino de Santiago and now splits her time between Portugal and the Southwest. Windswept is her third novel in the Digger Doyle Mystery series, following The Power of Rain and The Sunshine Solution.
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