Silent Are the Dead
-
- $18.99
Publisher Description
A Kiowa woman faces new threats to her tribe and identity while struggling to keep her Silicon Valley business afloat. She must search deep within herself to find answers—and a murderer—in Mary Higgins Clark Award finalist D. M. Rowell’s thrilling sequel, perfect for fans of Winter Counts.
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 heeds her grandfather's and great-aunt’s words of wisdom and embraces Kiowa tribal customs to find the answers that she seeks. But her ceremonial sweat leads to a vision with answers wrapped in more questions.
Mud and Denny race against the clock to uncover the real killer and must face the knowledge that there may be a traitor—and a murderer—in their midst. It’s already too late for one victim—and Mud may be next.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Rowell's clever second whodunit featuring Mud Sawpole (after Never Name the Dead) finds the Silicon Valley consultant turned Kiowa gumshoe looking into the murder of a master thief. After returning to Oklahoma from California at the request of her Kiowa storyteller grandfather, Mud helped thwart burglar Gerald Bean's attempts to steal the Kiowa tribe's precious Jefferson Peace Medal. Then one morning, Mud's high school sweetheart, Georgie Crow, stumbles over Bean's corpse in the tribe's maintenance hut—but when Mud arrives at the scene, Bean's body is nowhere to be found. A Kiowa tribal elder whose ancestral headdress was stolen by Bean becomes the prime suspect, but Mud isn't convinced of his guilt, and she launches her own investigation into the killing alongside her cousin, Denny. Meanwhile, Mud learns of a fracking operation that's encroaching on Kiowa land and tries to stop it. Rowell, herself a descendant of a Kiowa storyteller, elegantly threads tangible details about tribal life into the action, which remains propulsive throughout. By the time the narrative arrives at its surprising, fair-play conclusion, readers will be convinced this series deserves a long run.
