Spirit Sickness » (Reprint)

Kirk Mitchell is a veteran of law enforcement in Indian country. An Edgar Award nominee for a previous novel, he lives in the Sierra Nevada of California.

In the tradition of Tony Hillerman and Joseph Wambaugh comes this suspense thriller reuniting Bureau of Indian Affairs Criminal Investigator Emmett Quanah Parker and FBI Special Agent Anna Turnipseed, two Native American cops torn between their heritage and the law.

A fire-gutted police cruiser found in a remote part of the Navajo reservation bears witness to a horrific crime: inside are the bodies of a tribal patrolman and his wife. As BIA Investigator Emmett Parker and FBI Special Agent Anna Turnipseed know, a cop's murder is never simple, raising countless questions and suspicions.

When another murder is discovered, the case explodes into an otherworldly realm. Both Parker, a Comanche, and Turnipseed, a Modoc, are well acquainted with the eerie shadowland between native myth and modern homicide investigation. Now they will have to touch minds with a murderer who has woven personal madness with Navajo myth to create his own reality — and with it the need to kill and kill again.

Barnes & Noble Guide to New Fiction

This "vividly descriptive" and "tightly written thriller" set in the Southwest desert, tells the story of two Native American cops and a ritual murder that "brings a great array of characters together in a thrilling ending." Kept readers "on the edge of their seats." "A must-read for whodunit fans." "Too predictable," said dissenters, who also called it "confusing," and cited "the abrupt ending."