Native American Suspense

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?

Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls is relevant in the news today, rightfully so with the staggering statistics of racism, indifference, and the lack of historical pursuit for justice. This novella is fictionalized accounts of what our Native American women and girls lived through and died by the hands of assailants of all backgrounds that think indigenous women are invisible.

For Jonathon Roth and his family, a vacation in Cozumel became a nightmare. Pawns in a deadly ritual, Roth and his children barely escaped with their lives, and with the secrets of mastermind Jacob Calakmul. Calakmul’s endgame: to fulfill the Jaguar Prophecies—the foretelling of an inevitable Armageddon, one that will destroy entire nations. The key to stopping it is to retrieve an ancient codex—if Roth can decipher it.

The Spotted Pony Casino’s head of security, Dela Alvaro, receives a late-night call that takes her to a deserted walkway along the river. After confronting a woman babbling about love and bodies being buried, Dela stumbles over a corpse and discovers her knife covered in the victim’s blood.

This white-knuckled tale is about Idaho game warden Charley Cove struggling to stop a bloody string of deer shot and left in the snow. He's stymied by a lackadaisical prosecutor and a questionable deputy - the tug of two cultures running through his veins seem to be pulling him in different directions. Cove uncovers evidence that ties the shooter to crimes against people, and unknown to the warden, his bad guy is about to come unglued and drag his bloodbath into a nightmare for a two-legged victim.

On the banks of the Missouri River, the town of Yellow Earth and the Three Nations reservation prepare for an invasion - the ground beneath their feet is loaded with readily frackable shale oil and the minions of corporate energy are rushing to extract it. Tribal Chairman Harleigh Kildeer welcomes Big Oil with open arms, while county sheriff Will Crowder has to deal with the overnight influx of roughnecks, truckers, drug dealers, and sex workers.

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.

Winsor Glanvil pays court to Louise Carney, heiress to a fortune, and she agrees to marry him. The marriage is opposed by big Jack Rutledge, a jealous rival and formidable foe, so Glanvil and Louise plan to be married in a sequestered valley by a local clergyman. Rutledge and his supporters, learning of the plan, arrive in the valley ahead of the two and seize Glanvil. Glanvil is beaten mercilessly and Rutledge disfigures him, destroying one side of his face with the cutting edge of a spur. Rutledge then rejoins his gang in the clergyman’s house.

It's 1952, and Jasper isn't allowed to ask questions or make a fuss. He's lucky to even have a home and must keep his mouth shut and his ears open to stay in his uncle's good graces. No one knows where his mother went or whether she's coming back. Desperate to see her again, he must take matters into his own hands. From the farm, he embarks on a treacherous search that will take him to the squalid hideaways of Detroit and back again, through tawdry taverns, peep shows, and gambling houses.

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 crash of a Cessna 310 charter flight on a Nevada mountainside has left two survivors: Leah Talbot, a young secretary from Las Vegas, and the pilot, lone wolf Reilly Smith. Part Native American, all man, Reilly is impassive, mysterious, and inscrutable. Under the noonday sun, they make their way across a hostile stretch of Nevada desert. Under the cold night rain, they have only their bodies, locked in embrace, to keep them warm. As two desperate strangers come together, so does a desire that burns as hot as the sand.

After four women disappear from the Taos Pueblo reservation, Deputy Eva “Lightning Dance” Duran dives into the case. For her, it’s personal. Among the missing is her best friend, Paloma, a heroin addict who left behind an eighteen-year-old son. Eva senses a lack of interest from the department as she embarks on the investigation. But their reluctance only fuels her fire. Eva teams up with tribal police officer and longtime friend Cruz “Wolf Song” Romero to tackle a mystery that could both ruin her reputation and threaten her standing in the tribe.

In the shadow of a massive boulder on Oklahoma’s Big Rock Prairie, a squirrel hunter discovers a charred skeleton in a homemade charcoal kiln. Johnston County deputy Hannah Bond and Chickasaw Lighthorse police sergeant Bill Maytubby are called to the scene and soon identify the victim as a young Chickasaw man from a nearby town. What begins as the search for a killer soon throws Maytubby and Bond into the deep end of a conspiracy that puts both the victim’s family and the officers themselves at risk.

An ancient, disabled girl holds the key to unlock two modern day murders on the Dine Bikeyah. Archeology and murder entwine in Chappell's latest Canyon Lands thriller.

Having no choice but to abandon his adopted life and return to his roots, Scarberry finds himself dropped into a situation far more harrowing than he ever could have imagined. Allied with a single sheriff's deputy - a young woman he knew only briefly in his youth who is fighting battles of her own - the two face a network of illegal gun runners, apathetic bureaucracy, and federal agency, ultimately squaring off with the very thing Scarberry's been trying to avoid for so long....

Darkly handsome with an arrogant edge, architectural engineer Scout Ritland is the kind of American man who spells trouble. Chantal duPont should know, for she has experienced the best and worst of the country and its people. Yet here she is, home on Parrish Island, putting herself in the way of another bold Yankee. This time, however, it's for a good cause: Scout is the one man who can help her village.

How far would you go to protect a loved one? Would you tamper with evidence? Commit arson? Allow a prime suspect to remain at large? Pegasus Quincy and her former partner, Shepherd Malone, have some difficult choices ahead when Shep’s daughter is caught with a murder weapon in her hand. It doesn’t help when the detective on the case has problems of his own. When he applies to the sheriff’s department, he conveniently forgets to mention that he was terminated from his previous position under a cloud of fraud.

On a remote island off the coast of Maine, a troubled family is trying to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives and start over. But, unbeknownst to them, the property they have inherited is steeped in ancient magic - magic that could seek to destroy and devour them.