Cry Dance
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Overview
If there's one thing Bureau of Indian Affairs Investigator Emmet Quanah Parker knows, it's that the dead don't always stay dead. With him he carries the ghosts of a partner killed in action, three failed marriages, and a long affair with the bottle. And now he's about to face the most dangerous case of his career--one that begins with a body that doesn't stay buried.Brutally murdered and bizarrely mutilated, a woman's corpse is discovered on Havasupai Nation land. Parker is paired with FBI Special Agent Anna Turnipseed in a hastily assembled task force of two. The two share a mixed Native American ancestry...and little else. As they are pulled deeper into a complex case, Parker suspects they are being led--like Custer into Little Bighorn--into a killer's trap, with Anna the bait and Parker himself the quarry. At the heart of it are the dead, with history the most lethal weapon of all....
Synopsis
If there's one thing Bureau of Indian Affairs Investigator Emmet Quanah Parker knows, it's that the dead don't always stay dead. With him he carries the ghosts of a partner killed in action, three failed marriages, and a long affair with the bottle. And now he's about to face the most dangerous case of his career—one that begins with a body that doesn't stay buried.
Brutally murdered and bizarrely mutilated, a woman's corpse is discovered on Havasupai Nation land. Parker is paired with FBI Special Agent Anna Turnipseed in a hastily assembled task force of two. The two share a mixed Native American ancestry...and little else. As they are pulled deeper into a complex case, Parker suspects they are being led—like Custer into Little Bighorn—into a killer's trap, with Anna the bait and Parker himself the quarry. At the heart of it are the dead, with history the most lethal weapon of all....
People
Tony Hillerman watch your back....Kirk Mitchell knows his turf and delivers a savory whodunit without remorse.
Editorials
Jane Dickinson
The book's breakneck pace is aided by investigators who almost never sleep, except when they've been knocked unconscious by bad guys.—Denver Rocky Mountain News
Leslie Doran
The novel's final scenes are truly creepy and caused much nail biting on my part.—Mystery News
Malcolm Brenner
Cry Dance is easily the equal of Hillerman's best and many, many times than his recent output. Cry Dance deserves to be read both by mystery fans and those who relish American Indian culture.—Gallup Independent
People
Tony Hillerman watch your back....Kirk Mitchell knows his turf and delivers a savory whodunit without remorse.Publishers Weekly
Edgar Award nominee Mitchell (Deep Valley Malice), an ex-California SWAT cop formerly assigned to the reservations of Inyo County, offers a taut thriller about criminal control of tribal gambling casinos. Peppered with bureaucratic legalese and illuminated by fascinating lore of the Southwestern tribes, the plot is layered with authenticity. Investigating the mutilation murder of a Las Vegas-based officer of the Bureau of Land Management, Emmett Quanah Parker, part-white, part-Comanche investigator for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, is assigned to work with rookie FBI agent, half-Modoc, half-Japanese Anna Turnipseed. Although the BLM agent's body was found on a remote reservation in Arizona with her face neatly sliced off, it becomes evident that she was killed near the borax pits in Death Valley, Calif., while working on an Indian land trade involving the site for a proposed super casino near an off-ramp of Interstate 15. While Parker is in Carson City to interrogate the gaming syndicate's lawyer, Parker's old enemy, FBI agent Burk Hagiman, defies Parker's judgment and sends Anna undercover to work as a dealer at a backwater casino, where, of course, she encounters danger. The complex plot slowly reveals a conspiracy involving Jamaicans, Vegas hitmen and double-dealing Native Americans. Throughout, Mitchell tightly controls his material, his bitterness over the white man's legacy to Native Americans evident in historical asides. Unfortunately, the heart-stopping action is marred by his preoccupation with landscape, too many cardboard cutout bad Indians and a cartoonish nemesis. The climax based on the villain's change of heart is too contrived to maintain full credibility, blurring the earlier promise of a nail-biting end. Despite all this, Parker and Turnipseed make a memorable literary pair.Library Journal
Mitchell's Southwest is as hauntingly beautiful and culturally complex as the real thing. When the faceless corpse of Stephanie Roper, a wheeling-dealing top official of the Bureau of Land Management, is discovered near Arizona's Havasupai Reservation, stoical Comanche Bureau of Indian Affairs investigator Emmett Quanah Parker is teamed with attractive, half-Modoc, half-Japanese FBI rookie Anna Turnipseed. Parker immediately senses that the killer is toying with them, providing clue after easy clue. As Anna goes undercover dealing cards at a Shoshone tribal casino, Parker heads to Lake Tahoe, where he almost loses his hand to the murderer's knife, temporarily loses the killer's scent, but nets another faceless corpse. Mitchell (Fredericksburg, LJ 2/1/96) was a law enforcement officer on the reservation in California's Inyo County and possesses an insider's knowledge of Native American history and the Southwest's brooding landscape. A good purchase, especially for Tony Hillerman fans.--Susan A. Zappia, Maricopa Cty. Lib. Dist., PhoenixMarilyn Stasio
...[P]lenty of strenuous treks through rugged terrain....what a great guy to keep around...— The New York Times Book Review