A Longer Fall

This is the 2nd installment in Charlaine Harris' "Gunnie Rose" series; I posted about the first one, which I read about a year ago, An Easy Death. See that post to get filled in on the background for this alternative history setting and some of the main characters. In this book, Lizbeth Rose, a well known "gunnie" at the tender age of 19, has joined a new crew to guard a crate that is going to the territory of Dixie. She knows the crew's leader, Jake, only by reputation and doesn't know any of the other members who are accompanying the crate of unknown contents on the train ride to its destination . But before they arrive, the train tracks are blown up, the train derails,  and thieves invade the wrecked train to steal the crate. Several of her new crew members die and the crate disappear. Lizbeth herself is wounded. She is surprised to find Eli, the wizard she was hired to guard in the first book, at the site of the wreck and he drives her to the nearby town of Sally. Being Dixie and not Texoma, he insists she needs to wear women's clothes and buys them for her so she won't stand out as they are trying to find the crate and the person/ people who were supposed to accept the crate. Lisbeth quickly realizes just how different a world it is in Dixie. Women are subservient to men, and Blacks are subservient to everyone and treated essentially as slaves. Eli and Lizbeth pretend to be a married couple, again to try and avoid drawing unwanted attention to themselves while they investigate;  they resume an affair initiated at the end of the first book.  Of course trouble finds them nevertheless. I won't spoil it by telling you what was in the crate... I continue to enjoy these characters and the world building in this alternate version of the United States. Engaging review from Kirkus,  and a much less laudatory one from Publishers Weekly.