Native American Fiction Mystery

Until the telephone call came for him on April 12, 1975, the world of Moon Mathias had settled into a predictable routine. He knew who he was. He was the disappointing son of Victoria Mathias, the brother of the brilliant, recently dead Ricky Mathias and a man who could be counted on to solve small problems. But the telephone caller was an airport security officer, and the news he delivered handed Moon a problem as large as Southeast Asia. His mother, who should be in her Florida apartment, is fighting for her life in a Los Angeles hospital - stricken while en route to the Philippines to bring home a grandchild they hadn't known existed.

FBI Special Agent Anna Turnipseed, a Modoc Indian from California, and Bureau of Indian Affairs Investigator Emmett Parker, a Comanche from Oklahoma, are a team, sent by the Feds wherever there are problems in tribal territory.

Shortly after private eye Howard Moon Deer decides to settle down with his latest lady love, he accepts a new case that takes him away from the home front and introduces him to the dangerous passions that drive San Geronimo's thriving art scene. Howard and ex-police commander Jack Wilder have been hired to investigate Sherman Stone, a man notorious for his torrid liaisons and low-life friends. Rumor has it that he's planning to have his wealthy wife killed. But before Howard can separate fact from fiction, a local hobo is murdered, and then Sherman himself meets an untimely end.

Historical photographs are on display at the museum of St. Francis Mission on the Arapaho reservation, and history seems doomed to repeat itself. A descendant of the tribal chief who appeared in the pictures has been shot to death, and the museum's curator has disappeared. The two incidents may be linked to a near century-old murder.

Travis Birdsong sits in prison for killing his partner in the crime of stealing petroglyphs from the Red Cliff canyon. Attorney Vicki Holden is convinced that Travis must be innocent because another petroglyph has been stolen out of the canyon. She is even more convinced after the thieves contact the mission priest in order to get the tribes to buy the artifact back. As Father John tries to get the petroglyph back and Vicki tries to prove Travis is innocent, the two situations collide.

Nick Drake, a hero to believe in, is back! A contemporary western thriller. It's 1969 and spring finally comes to the lonesome Oregon high desert after an especially bitter winter, but for every new beginning, something old must give way. Someone is poisoning wild horses and a vicious killer escapes from prison. A murder thrusts Vietnam veteran turned wildlife ranger Nick Drake into a desperate manhunt that turns into a fight for survival to protect those he holds dear. Spring quickly turns into a season of dying and life in Harney County will never be the same.

When Nora’s best friend, a film director, dies in a hiking accident, Nora suspects foul play. Could a controversial film project have played a part? Intent on finding out, Nora struggles to piece together the truth. What she finds is shocking. What is the connection between a secretive polygamist sect, Native American lore, one of the world’s richest men, and her own mother’s surprising past? Her race to weave together these seemingly unrelated threads leads Nora into harm’s way.

Gabriel Du Pré’s aunt Pauline has burned through more than her share of husbands, so it’s no surprise when she shows up in Toussaint complaining that the latest one, Badger, has run off. Du Pré, the fiddler and sometimes deputy, agrees to go looking for her man and finds him shot, execution-style, in the wilds of the Montana countryside. A chat with his contacts at the FBI reveals that Badger, a small-time drug smuggler, had been working for them since his last arrest. Pauline’s husband was bait, but the big fish got away.

Lieutenant John Patchen has come to Montana to persuade Chappie Plaquemines, his former gunnery sergeant in Iraq and the son of Gabriel Du Pré's girlfriend, to accept the Navy Cross. First, however, Du Pré and Patchen must find the wounded marine, who was last seen drinking heavily in the Toussaint Saloon. They locate him soon enough, disheveled and stinking of stale booze, but a sobering visit to a medicine man's sweat lodge reveals a much greater mystery.

With the aid of the Native American Shaman Conawago, Duncan McCallum has begun to heal from the massacre of his Highland clan by the British. But his new life is shattered when he and Conawago discover a dying Virginian officer nailed to an Indian shrine tree. To their horror, the authorities arrest Conawago and schedule his hanging. As Duncan begins a desperate search for the truth, he finds himself in a maelstrom of deception and violence.

Film star Sharon David travels to Wind River country, convinced that she was adopted at birth from the reservation.

Someone has left three dead Shoshones on an historic battlefield, positioned to mimic the bodies of those Arapahos killed in the slaughter. Frankie Montana, attorney Vicky Holden's latest client, is a frequent guest of the reservation's holding cells, and after a recent heated encounter with the three dead men, is the number one suspect in their deaths. But despite his faults, Vicky doesn't believe he is capable of murder.

When the local trader is found murdered the only clue points directly at Lucy Tallwoman. The FBI sweeps in to discover a decades-old trail of deceit and betrayal as the darker days of Lucy's past come back to haunt her. The family decides they need help . . . and fast.

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.

James "Orlando" Sherwood has resurrected the old Shadow Dance religion, having his followers dance for days at a time for the promise of an Indian paradise. And when lawyer Vicky Holden's estranged husband is found murdered, Father John O'Malley believes that Orlando has more to do with it than he lets on. But to get the proof, Father John and Vicky Holden will have to learn to dance to his music.

An historian, who is convinced that the memoirs of 19th-century Shoshone heroine Sacajawea are stashed somewhere on the reservation, has disappeared.

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.

Jake Webber should be feeling great. He was in the prime of life. He was a young successful corporate attorney in Pittsburgh living in a a posh shadyside townhouse. But Jake didn't feel. Jake had a secret. Since childhood Jake had vivid and powerful dreams that were so realistic he sometimes had trouble distinguishing between his dreams and the real world. His new pro bono case had Jake feeling even more uncertain and had Jake not only questioning his own reality but the very structure of existence!

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.

John Henry Cole is an operative of Ike Kelly's Detective Agency, based out of Cheyenne, Wyoming Territory. Returning to Cheyenne from what had been a deadly assignment in Deadwood, Dakota Territory, Cole has decided that he has no alternative but to resign from the agency and pursue a different line of work. However, in Cheyenne, Cole learns that Ike Kelly has been murdered and his body burned in a fire that destroyed both the agency office and the shop next door.