Native Mystery

It’s the 1950s. Thousands of people every day pass through Smoke Tree, California, on Route 66. The Mother Road. The two-lane blacktop that stretches from Chicago to LA. A few make a quick stop in the isolated, Mojave Desert town. Some stay. Some are dangerous. And a few are downright deadly. Burke Henry is deadly. He drives into Smoke Tree on a motorcycle on a cold, windy, winter day. His panniers are stuffed with cash. Lots of cash. Who is he? What does he want? Why a tiny town like Smoke Tree? Nobody knows, but they’re all dying to find out. And so are some men from Oklahoma. Members...

A snowmelt has sent floodwaters down to the fields of the Red River Valley, dragging the body of an unidentified Native woman into the town of Ada. The only evidence the medical examiner recovers is a torn piece of paper inside her bra: a hymnal written in English and Ojibwe. Cash Blackbear, a 19-year-old Ojibwe woman, sometimes helps Sheriff Wheaton, her guardian, on his investigations. Now she knows her search for justice for this anonymous victim will take her to the White Earth Reservation, a place she once called home.

In the middle of an important investigation,Smoke Tree Substation Commander Carlos Caballo, known up and down the Colorado River Valley as "Horse," is suddenly called away to find a man who has shot an inspector at the California Agricultural Inspection station in the tiny desert community of Vidal, California. A California Highway patrolman has found the car abandoned alongside Highway95. When Horse and and the patrolman force open the trunk, they discover a body: the man's wife. Horse realizes he and his deputies must find a killer who is on foot in the vast, unpopulated area where the ...

Join Chelsea, Francois, Ash, Dustin, Kelsi, and Jason as they return for their most daring expedition yet: tracking down the elusive Nantiinaq in the haunted ghost town of Portlock, Alaska. Legend has it that this desolate place was abandoned when the townsfolk fled in fear of the mysterious Nantiinaq, also known as Bigfoot. The Chugach Corporation has enlisted the expertise of Dr. Chelsea Buckley for a high-stakes mission. Their objective? To ensure Portlock's safety for redevelopment into a luxurious resort, complete with prime real estate plots for sale. Armed with state-of-the-art ...

#1 Bestseller in Kindle Store for Women Sleuths!When a young Native American woman is murdered, a shock wave rips through the peaceful town of Garnerville, Oregon. Police Chief Sidney Becker, a highly skilled detective, won’t rest until the killer is in custody. She learns from tribal members that the victim had been releasing animals trapped by poachers. A poacher who caught her destroying his traps threatened to skin her alive. Sidney believes nine-year-old Tegan knows the killer’s identity. Blinded by lightning when he was six, Tegan has a heightened sense of smell and hearing. He ...

A Marine returns home after suffering wounds from an RPG blast that killed many of his squad members, including his best friend. He now faces brutal battles at home. Sully’s parents are estranged, his father is an invalid, and the family ranch is nearing bankruptcy. Murdering thieves are stealing champion horses and disappearing into the desert like ghosts. While attempting to make peace with his abusive father, Sully discovers the shocking secrets that drove his parents apart. Deeply resentful, he works with his father solely for the survival of the ranch. Sully finds comfort in Maggie, ...

One Sunday in the spring of 1988, a woman living on a reservation in North Dakota is attacked. The details of the crime are slow to surface as Geraldine Coutts is traumatized and reluctant to relive or reveal what happened, either to the police or to her husband, Bazil, and 13-year-old son, Joe. In one day, Joe's life is irrevocably transformed. He tries to heal his mother, but she will not leave her bed and slips into an abyss of solitude. Increasingly alone, Joe finds himself thrust prematurely into an adult world for which he is ill prepared.

After the disappearance of Cecilia Edakee’s cousin, and the confusion over which one of the law enforcement agencies has jurisdiction over the investigation, Sandy and Ben join forces with Cecilia and her cousin Bea to locate the missing woman. The rag-tag investigative team is baffled by a lack of evidence and must follow any trail they can to gather clues. This leads them to Albuquerque, Grants and, finally, the Navajo Nation to pull the pieces of this mystery together. To complicate matters, Sandy is pregnant with Ben’s first child and he is concerned that the pressure from sleuthing...

Reunited by a grave robber and a corpse, Navajo Tribal Police Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn is trying to determine the identity of a murder victim, while Officer Jim Chee is arresting Smithsonian conservator Henry Highhawk for ransacking the sacred bones of his ancestors. But with each peeled-back layer, it becomes shockingly clear that these two cases are mysteriously connected - and that others are pusuing Highhawk, with lethal intentions. And the search for answers to a deadly puzzle is pulling Leaphorn and Chee into the perilous arena of superstition, ancient ceremony, and living gods.

The much-anticipated finale of the epic saga of Hidden Part 1. A modern western classic! Sully, a wounded Marine, struggles to adjust to civilian life. The dark secrets that destroyed his parent’s marriage slowly come to light. Though furious, Sully is forced to live and work with his father for the survival of the ranch. The county is in an uproar. Thieves have been striking neighboring ranches, stealing champion horses, and disappearing into the desert like ghosts. After being severely beaten, a young up-and-coming bull rider escapes from savage killers. Justin’s luck changes when ...

A MAN SHOULD NOT DROWN IN A DESERT! BUT ONE HAS. TWICE! Teenage outsiders from the desert town of Smoke Tree find a body floating in a cistern beneath a desert moon, but an autopsy shows the man drowned elsewhere. Why move a drowned man and stage a false drowning? As Deputy Johnny Quentin, investigates, he discovers that the man's wife is also missing. Johnny must find her before the killer claims another victim. Find her in a section of open desert larger than some states. The new deputy, haunted his his tours as a Ranger in Vietnam and the death of his best friend there, must put his ...

Cash and Sheriff Wheaton make for a strange partnership. He pulled her from her mother's wrecked car when she was three. He's kept an eye out for her ever since. It's a tough place to live - northern Minnesota along the Red River. Cash navigated through foster homes, and at 13 was working farms. She's tough as nails, five feet two inches, blue jeans, blue jean jacket, smokes Marlboros, drinks Bud Longnecks. Makes her living driving truck. Playing pool on the side.

Joe Leaphorn may be long retired from the Navajo Tribal Police, but his detective skills are still sharp, honed by his work as a private detective. His experience will be essential to solve a compelling new case: finding the birth parents of a woman who was raised by a bilagáana family but believes she is Diné based on one solid clue, an old photograph with a classic Navajo child’s blanket.

Quill has lived on the Red Pine reservation in Minnesota her whole life. She knows what happens to women who look like her. Just a girl when Jimmy Sky jumped off the railway bridge and she ran for help, Quill realizes now that she’s never stopped running. As she trains for the Boston Marathon early one morning in the woods, she hears a scream. When she returns to search the area, all she finds are tire tracks and a single beaded earring.

As an archeologist for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Syd Walker spends her days in Rhode Island trying to protect the land's indigenous past, even as she’s escaping her own. While Syd is dedicated to her job, she’s haunted by a night of violence she barely escaped in her Oklahoma hometown 15 years ago. Though she swore she’d never go back, the past comes calling. When a skull is found near the crime scene of her youth, just as her sister, Emma Lou, vanishes, Syd knows she must return home.

In this fast-paced sequel to the highly acclaimed Navajo Autumn, Charlie Yazzie and Thomas Begay encounter danger and intrigue on the nation's largest Indian reservation. Old and new characters emerge to unravel ongoing corruption in the upcoming Patsy Greyhorse murder trials, and an irascible Ute family and their shrewd ranch-woman neighbor become caught up in the plot to place certain tribal leaders above the law.

Her name is Renee Blackbear, but what most people call the 19-year-old Ojibwe woman is Cash. She lived all her life in Fargo, sister city to Minnesota’s Moorhead, just downriver from the Cities. She has one friend, the Sheriff Wheaton. He pulled her from her mother’s wrecked car when she was three. Since then, Cash navigated through foster homes and at 13 was working farms, driving trucks.

Sunny Kinnion thought he had left his past behind when he retired from the NFL. But a brutal attack by his long-lost father sends him to a remote cabin in the Black Hills of South Dakota, where he begins to experience strange visions. With the help of his Native relatives, he travels to the Shakopee reservation in Minnesota, where he uncovers a hidden world of power and secrets. But he also faces a new threat: a federal agent who can destroy the reservation and its sacred land. ‘Welcome to South Dakota’ is a riveting adventure that explores the themes of identity, culture, and destiny. ...

Joe Leaphorn may have retired from the Tribal Police, but he finds himself knee-deep in a perplexing case involving a priceless artifact - a reminder of a dark time in Navajo history. Joe’s been hired to find a missing biil, a traditional dress that had been donated to the Navajo Nation. His investigation takes a sinister turn when the leading suspect dies under mysterious circumstances and Leaphorn himself receives anonymous warnings to beware - witchcraft is afoot.

This James Lee Burke novel, featuring Son Holland - the great-grandfather of Burke's Billy Bob Holland - as he flees a Louisiana prison camp with a Native American woman and a fellow prisoner in tow, is now available in audio.