Native American Fiction Mystery

From the best-selling novelist of the American West, comes a novel of romance, danger, and life along the trail.

The gruesome corpse of a young woman is found beside a long Montana highway called the Hi-Line. Her jaw and teeth are missing, and she is impossible to identify. Full of anger and without a clue, Du Pre begins to hunt the countryside for her murderer. As more dismembered corpses - all young women - are discovered, the small ranching community goes into shock.

When Shandra Higheagle’s dog brings her a dead body in a sleigh full of presents, her world is turned upside down. The man is a John Doe, and within twenty-four hours, another body is found. Detective Ryan Greer receives a call that has them both looking over their shoulders. A vengeful brother of a gang member who died in a gang war is out for Ryan’s blood. Shandra’s dreams and Ryan’s fellow officers may not be enough to keep them alive to share Christmas.

Crystal meth, brushfires, and a murderer on the loose threaten Du Pré’s tranquil Montana town. Drought has come to Toussaint, Montana, and appendicitis has stricken the Mtis Indian tracker and investigator Gabriel Du Pré. His appendix is bad enough, but what really hurts is being trapped in the hospital when he learns that Maddy Collins has been killed. As far as Du Pré knows, no one in town had cause to dislike the harmless old coot, much less bash her head in with a cast-iron hatchet. When the doctors release him, he goes looking for answers.

For four generations, the Messmers have raised cattle in the rough country of eastern Montana. When the current owners die in a motor home accident, they leave the ranch to their son - an ominous development for everyone in the area, both human and bovine. Larry Messmer left Toussaint in the 1980s, when he got in trouble for bludgeoning a horse to death, and Gabriel Du Pré hoped he would never come back. Larry announces his return by having his ranch hands kill every weak cow on the property.

Christian Sands, an FBI profiler with unique abilities, is called upon, once again, to investigate the mysterious disappearance of several children from their homes over one night in the small town of Swanton, Vermont. It's been a year since the disappearance, and the town is swamped with media frenzy, law enforcement, and paparazza from every walk of life with their own spin on the disappearance. And as others are discovered mutilated in the nearby forest, the town is a powder keg waiting to explode.

While back on tribal land, Mud Sawpole uncovers an illegal fracking operation underway that threatens the Kiowas’ ancestral homeland. But there’s an even greater threat: a local businessman involved in artifact thefts is murdered and a respected tribe elder faces accusation of the crime. After being roped in by her cousin, Denny, they begin to investigate the death while also pursuing evidence to permanently stop frackers from destroying Kiowa land, water, and livelihoods. When answers evade her, Mud embraces Kiowa tribal customs to find the answers that she seeks.

No one called her Mud in Silicon Valley. There, she was Mae, a high-powered professional who had left her Kiowa roots behind a decade ago. But a cryptic voice message from her grandfather, James Sawpole, telling her to come home sounds so wrong that she catches the next plane to Oklahoma, where she finds a tribe in disarray. When Mud and her cousin Denny discover her grandfather missing, accused of stealing the valuable Jefferson Peace medal from the tribe museum—and stumble across a body in his work room—Mud has no choice but to search for answers.

Lakota beauty Kinton Brulee just snagged an Oregon state deputy fire-marshal job. She thinks she can handle PTSD, and doubters in her male-dominated profession while raising a disabled son and at-risk niece. But when she investigates a hemp farm blaze near home, she races to outwit a killer burning to destroy her.

With his heart blown to bits by a staggering loss, Sheriff Zeb Hanks falls into an abyss of drunkenness, hatred, and rage. With the help of Deputy Kate Steele, former sheriff Jake Dablo, medicine man Jimmy Song Bird, and close friend Josh Diamond, Zeb pulls himself back from the edge and turns his rage on the cause of his torment: a Mexican drug and human trafficking cartel.

The Conquistadors Trilogy is a sweeping historical fiction epic that explores the violent and horrific Spanish Conquest of the New World from the years 1527 to 1542. Told through the eyes of a Spanish soldier named Sardina, each journey, from the jungles of Peru, through the vast Arizona deserts, and finally to the great Mississippi River, brutally reveals the traumatic events of the Spanish Conquest of the Natives of the Americas. But each story also depicts the beauty and bravery of these people, and the unyielding courage of each tribe, kingdom, and village.

Deadfall tracks Charlie Yazzie, Thomas Begay, and Harley Ponyboy into unfamiliar territory. When a family member unexpectedly dies, a debilitating sense of loss overcomes our friends on the reservation. The ties that have bound them begin to unravel. What witch's evil is at work? Is the bond forever broken? Or is there a connection to the ancient past that might bring this malevolent aura to an end?

Outside of Choteau, Montana are three crosses on a plateau, called Priest Butte. The story goes that 160 years ago, Blackfeet warriors savagely murdered three priests. Or the story goes that priests tortured and killed three Blackfeet boys. Two stories. One history.

Nick Drake confronts a double-feature of murder and mysticism when Sheriff Pudge Warbler enlists him to catch a killer among the movie stars and film crew turning Harney County into a celluloid version of the Old West. At the same time, he runs afoul of a sinister gold mining company after finding an old prospector shot in the back.

In Indian Country: Missing. Two young Lakota women, Anya Fast Runner and Veronica Likes Pretty Dresses, have gone missing, one reported missing on the reservation and the other in the county, Mike taking the report himself. Both cases are obviously related and both ladies were last seen with his old nemesis Raymond Angry Boy Whitecloud.

Mortician Tennessee England lives to honor the dead. But a slow season means she’s back freelancing as a party planner. Doctor Phillip Saint James warns the stress might worsen her cerebral aneurysm, causing all sorts of mystifying symptoms. To her disgust, he’s right. She’s been hallucinating a sexy ghost samurai all damn day. Or has she? His icy touch on the nape of her neck feels awfully real! So do his dire warnings that she must choose a side: mortal or immortal.

What started out as a favor and a leisurely trip into the mountains, soon turns State Trooper Gabriel Hawke’s life upside down. The snowstorm they were trying to beat comes early, a horse accident breaks Dani Singer’s leg, and Hawke finds a body in the barn at Charlie’s Lodge.

It's frustrating for local law enforcement to come up against a piece of scum like Newton Glover. He's dirty as hell, everyone knows that - breaks into and vandalizes his neighbors' homes; cheats and steals from everyone; folks suspect he deals drugs and porn. He's even killed a man and gotten away with it. He gets away with all of it, hinting that he has a secret government background and that he's "protected" by the Powers That Be. Glover may finally have gone too far.

A woman's skeleton is found on the Wind River Reservation. Forensics determine the woman was shot to death in 1973. Arapaho attorney Vicky Holden and Father John O'Malley are determined to find the identity of the forgotten woman and see that she is laid to rest in the traditional Arapaho way. As the life and death of the woman begin to come into view, Vicky and Father John realize that, after 30 years, the killer still on the reservation and that they are about to be his next victims.

The Navajo Nation police are on high alert when a U.S. Cabinet Secretary schedules an unprecedented trip to the little Navajo town of Shiprock, New Mexico. The visit coincides with a plan to resume uranium mining along the Navajo Nation border. Tensions around the official’s arrival escalate when the body of a stranger is found in an area restricted for the disposal of radioactive uranium waste. Is it coincidence that a cult with a propensity for violence arrives at a private camp group outside Shiprock the same week to celebrate the summer solstice?