Bad Country by CB Mckenzie.

[scarletwoman]

2. First, I must thank you for bringing up this book.

I've added it to my "Want to Read" list on GoodReads.com.

As for fictitious place names, it's an extremely common practice in crime fiction. I think this may be for a number of reasons: First, it avoids giving a "bad name" to a real life town/village/county. Second, it forestalls anyone from claiming that one or more fictitious characters is based on someone in real life. Third, it avoids the problem of anyone attempting to connect the crime or crimes in the novel to any real life event.

Anyway, I've never had a problem with it - it's a recurring feature of a great many of the Nordic/Scottish/British/Minnesotan/Alaskan/Canadian crime novels I've been reading for years. E.g. - I love the Louise Penny Inspector Gamach books, no matter that there is no such village in rural Quebec as "Three Pines".

As for the "Los Cruces"/"Las Cruces" error - I would chalk that up to sloppy editing. One thing I've noticed over the years is that publishers have cut way back on their editing staff. It's infuriating for sure, but it's much the same throughout all print media. Welcome to the New World Order of Toxic Capitalism. I think we're lucky that books are still being published at all, considering how few people even read books anymore. Not exactly a high profit enterprise these days.

I'm generally forgiving of small annoyances in a novel if the overall story grabs me. As long as a book can carry me off into a new place in my imagination I'm happy. Yeah, I'm easy...