Saturday, May 9, 2020

Cry Dance by Kirk Mitchell


“Forgive my petulance this evening, Mr. Parker. I have this overwhelming feeling I’ll be out of a job this time next week.’

‘Well, you were looking for a job when you found this one, right?’”

Author, Kirk Mitchell, possesses a law-enforcement background and a familiarity with the areas of which he writes. This was the inaugural volume of a modern-day mystery-series featuring Bureau of Indian Affairs investigator, Emmett Quanah Parker of the Comanche tribe, and mixed-race FBI agent Anna Turnipseed.

A body that has been bizarrely mutilated is found in the Havasupai Nation, this is the incident that brings together our protagonists.

Mitchell gets the law enforcement turf wars down pat but even more interesting is the almost otherworldly interactions between different tribes. He gets the “All Indians ain’t the same” correct and walks our characters through the heady atmosphere of tribal politics and even deeper tribal belongings that manifest behavior hard to understand to an outside homogenized culture.

While the mystery works, I’ll admit that it was the insight and depth of this unusual setting that truly held my interest.

A worthy read for fans of Hillerman.

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