During a pow-wow between the U.S. Army and the Indians in 1867 a soldier is murdered, the incident threatening to derail a peace agreement. Indian healer and sleuth Tay-bodal investigates. By the author of Witch of the Palo Duro.

Mardi Oakley Medawar does for the Kiowa what Tony Hillerman has done for the Navaho.” —Don Goldsmith Award-winning author Mardi Oakley Medawar In 1868, following the signing of the Medicine Lodge Treaty, things are not going well for the Kiowa. When the Indian agent once again fails to live up to his promises, he is run off by the Kiowa. Tay-bodal—a healer and member of the Rattle Band—is enduring a personal crisis, and is therefore not in the best frame of mind when he is called to investigate a murder among the bands. The son of another chief, has been murdered. The one accused of killing him is the same man who has stolen Tay-bodal's wife. Unless Tay-bodal can put aside his own dislike and prove the accused innocent—and quickly—there will be war, tearing apart the Kiowa Nation. “In her debut novel, Death at Rainy Mountain, Mardi Oakley Medawar proved a Cherokee can bring the Kiowa of another epoch alive for us.” —Tony Hillerman “Recommended for its setting . . . strong mystery. . .and a moving ending that captures the passing of friendships and Kiowa society.” —Booklist “Native American traditions, culture, and intelligence lend the whole a meaty authenticity, tempered by Tay-bodal’s pragmatism and overweening compassion. A fine work; strongly recommended.” —Library Journal Wordcraft Circle of Native American Writers and Storytellers—Writer of the Year Award

"This is an extraordinary and ground-breaking book, a wonderfully creative mix of fact and theory, imagination and drama…The startling origin of the complex 'intention exception' to the hearsay evidence rule becomes canvas on which a grand and marvelously detailed tale is told. This is modern narrative at its best: a marriage of spectacular writing and hard, documented truth presented by a brilliant author who doubles as a gifted and fastidious legal scholar and historian." —Andrew Popper, American University One winter night in 1879, at a lonely Kansas campsite near Crooked Creek, a man was shot to death. The dead man’s traveling companion identified him as John Hillmon, a cowboy from Lawrence who had been attempting to carve out a life on the blustery prairie. The case might have been soon forgotten and the apparent widow, Sallie Hillmon, left to mourn—except for the $25,000 life insurance policies Hillmon had taken out shortly before his departure. The insurance companies refused to pay on the policies, claiming that the dead man was not John Hillmon, and Sallie was forced to take them to court in a case that would reach the Supreme Court twice. The companies’ case rested on a crucial piece of evidence: a faded love letter written by a disappeared cigarmaker, declaring his intent to travel westward with a “man named Hillmon.” In A Death at Crooked Creek, Marianne Wesson re-examines the long-neglected evidence in the case of the Kansas cowboy and his wife, recreating the court scenes that led to a significant Supreme Court ruling on the admissibility of hearsay evidence. Wesson employs modern forensic methods to examine the body of the dead man, attempting to determine his true identity and finally put this fascinating mystery to rest. This engaging and vividly imagined work combines the drama, intrigue, and emotion of excellent storytelling with cutting-edge forensic investigation techniques and legal theory. Wesson’s superbly imagined A Death at Crooked Creek will have general readers, history buffs, and legal scholars alike wondering whether history, and the Justices, may have misunderstood altogether the events at that bleak winter campsite. Marianne Wesson is Professor of Law and President’s Teaching Scholar, University of Colorado Law School. She is the author of best-selling and prize-winning legal novels including Render up the Body, A Suggestion of Death, and Chilling Effect. She lives in a Colorado mountain valley with her husband, llamas, dogs, and visiting wildlife.

In Murder on the Reservation, Ray B. Browne surveys the work of several of the best-known writers of crime fiction involving Indian characters and references virtually every book that qualifies as an Indian-related mystery. Browne believes that within the genre of crime fiction all people are equal, and the increasing role of Indian characters in criminal fiction proves what an important role this genre plays as a powerful democratizing force in American society. He endeavors to both analyze and evaluate the individual work of the authors, and at the same time, provide a commentary on the various attitudes towards race relations in the United States that each author presents. Some Indian fiction is intended to right the wrongs the authors feel have been leveled against Indians. Other authors use Indian lore and Indian locales as exotic elements and locations for the entertaining and commercially successful stories they want to write. Browne’s analysis includes authors and works of all backgrounds, with mysteries of first-class murder both on and off the reservation.

As the separate bands of the Kiowa nation gather at Rainy Mountain in 1866, the bands finds themselves divided over the choice of a new principal chief, as a cloud of murder hangs over the event.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A twisting, haunting true-life murder mystery about one of the most monstrous crimes in American history, from the author of The Wager and The Lost City of Z, “one of the preeminent adventure and true-crime writers working today."—New York Magazine • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • NOW A MARTIN SCORSESE PICTURE “A shocking whodunit…What more could fans of true-crime thrillers ask?”—USA Today “A masterful work of literary journalism crafted with the urgency of a mystery.” —The Boston Globe In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Nation in Oklahoma. After oil was discovered beneath their land, the Osage rode in chauffeured automobiles, built mansions, and sent their children to study in Europe. Then, one by one, the Osage began to be killed off. The family of an Osage woman, Mollie Burkhart, became a prime target. One of her relatives was shot. Another was poisoned. And it was just the beginning, as more and more Osage were dying under mysterious circumstances, and many of those who dared to investigate the killings were themselves murdered. As the death toll rose, the newly created FBI took up the case, and the young director, J. Edgar Hoover, turned to a former Texas Ranger named Tom White to try to unravel the mystery. White put together an undercover team, including a Native American agent who infiltrated the region, and together with the Osage began to expose one of the most chilling conspiracies in American history. Look for David Grann’s latest bestselling book, The Wager!

From railroad towns like Ladore to cow towns like Newton and Wichita, southeast Kansas pulsed with rowdy activity during the late nineteenth century. The unruly atmosphere drew outlaws, including the Dalton Gang, and even crazed serial killers the likes of the Bender clan. Violent incidents, from gunfights to lynchings, punctuated the region's Wild West era, and the allure of the frontier also attracted the everyday people whose passions sometimes spawned bloodshed as well. Award-winning author Larry E. Wood explores thirteen of these remarkable episodes in the criminal history of southeast Kansas.

"Montana Territory, 1886" ""The last thing this territory needs is Indian trouble, or a bunch of nervous settlers demanding protection by the Army. As United States Marshal for the territory, I figure to send Jeff a little help...I figure to send him you," he said." U.S. Deputy Marshal Merlin Fanshaw arrives at the Crow Indian Reservation with orders to restore law and order. But a powerful rancher and his son block the deputy's efforts in order to retain their rigid control over the nearby settlement of Medicine Lodge. When a shocking murder rocks the town, tension and violence escalates between the Crow Indians and the settlers. Fanshaw must bring in the killer before an innocent man loses his life-or he forfeits his own. "A particularly rewarding novel written by one of the finest Western novelists of our times. Stan Lynde's novels are laced with wry humor, thoughts on the art of living and growing, toughness and tenderness, and the keenest understanding of human nature I've ever seen in fiction." -Richard S. Wheeler, Winner of the 2001 Owen Wister Award "Lynde's pleasant, genuine narration, tinged with both wit and grit, carries the narrative; the authenticity, country humor, and vibrant characters all make for a warmly entertaining read. Satisfying western fare, in the vein of Louis L'Amour." "-Kirkus Discovery Reviews" "2006 Spur Award Finalist in Western Novel Category 2006 Independent Publisher Book Award Winner, West Mountain-Best Regional Fiction"

A national bestseller, the story of “a boy’s last days of youth and a history his father can’t leave behind” (The Daily Beast). Tom Harry has a streak of frost in his black pompadour and a venerable bar called The Medicine Lodge, the chief watering hole and last refuge in the town of Gros Ventre, in northern Montana. Tom also has a son named Rusty, an “accident between the sheets” whose mother deserted them both years ago. The pair make an odd kind of family, with the bar their true home, but they manage just fine. Until the summer of 1960, that is, when Rusty turns twelve. Change arrives with gale force, in the person of Proxy, a taxi dancer Tom knew back when, and her beatnik daughter, Francine. Is Francine, as Proxy claims, the unsuspected legacy of her and Tom’s past? Without a doubt she is an unsettling gust of the future, upending every certainty in Rusty’s life and generating a mist of passion and pretense that seems to obscure everyone’s vision but his own. The Bartender’s Tale wonderfully captures how the world becomes bigger and the past becomes more complex in the last moments of childhood.