Snake in the Glass by Sarah Atwell

Emmeline Dowell has a glass-blowing business in Tucson and has just returned from Dublin with bad news for her brother Cam. When she tells him his lady love Allison is not and may not be returning to Tucson, he storms out of Em's apartment saying only that he has a small job he needs to finish up. Meanwhile, a body is found in the desert that in turn connects to the arrival of a strange little professor, Denis Ryerson, wanting to use her glass oven to process peridot stones. Atwell contrives a neat little mystery while throwing in bits of information about the peridot gem stones. Not a bad read. Sandy Penton