Nail's Crossing
A Novel
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- $6.99
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
This debut mystery from a fresh voice in Southwestern fiction stakes out the common ground between Tony Hillerman, Elmore Leonard, and Cormac McCarthy.
In a remote corner of the Chickasaw Nation, tribal Lighthorse policeman Bill Maytubby and county deputy Hannah Bond discover the buzzard-ravaged body of Majesty Tate, a young drifter with a blank past. They comb Oklahoma’s rock prairie, river bottoms, and hard-bitten small towns for traces of her last days.
Tate was seen dancing with Austin Love, a violent local meth dealer fresh out of prison. An Oklahoma City motel clerk connects her with an aspiring politician. An oil-patch roustabout and a shady itinerant preacher provide dubious leads. Ne’er-do-wells start dying off.
A fluke lead propels Maytubby deep into Louisiana’s bayou country, where a Cajun shrimper puts him on the scent of a bizarre conspiracy. He and Bond reunite in the Chickasaw Nation for the eventual face-off at Nail’s Crossing.
“As fine a mystery series debut as I’ve read in a long time.”—Craig Johnson, New York Times bestselling author of the Longmire series
“Thrilling…Lackey’s exciting story unwinds like a rattlesnake.”—Bill Loehfelm, author of The Devil’s Muse
“A captivating look at a little-known corner of rural Oklahoma…rife with drug problems, yet peopled by tenacious, idiosyncratic characters you can’t help rooting for.”—Kirkus Reviews
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Lackey's atmospheric if initially confusing first novel revolves around the members of several law enforcement agencies with overlapping jurisdictions in hot and arid present-day Oklahoma. Tribal police officer William Maytubby and County Deputy Hanna Bond, supported by the Highway Patrol and the FBI, join forces when they discover the ravaged body of Majesty Tate, a prostitute who has been stabbed with a distinctive antler-handled Bowie knife. The knife sets Maytubby and Bond on the trail of Austin Love, an ex-con with drug and battery convictions. Most of the action takes place along the gummy asphalt highways, rutted country roads, and dusty tracks of Oklahoma, with a brief side trip to Louisiana's Cajun country. As details of Majesty's life come to light, the tone becomes murkier and more complex, involving other murders, blackmail, kidnapping, and deceit. This police procedural has much to recommend it intriguing characters, vivid landscape descriptions, and some witty dialogue between Maytubby and his fianc e but Lackey could have taken a lesson from Tony Hillerman in how to clearly delineate who and where the characters are.
