Death Where the Bad Rocks Live

by C M Wendelboe

Overview

FBI agent Manny Tanno thought he had left his tribe and the Pine Ridge Reservation behind him years ago. But now with a cold case unearthed in the hot plains sun, he knows that the past never really goes away.

In Badlands National Park, there is a desolate area the Lakota refer to as the Stronghold. General Custer called it hell on earth. During World War II, the Army Air Corps used it as a bombing range. At the end of the war, many unexploded ordnances were swallowed up in its sweltering sands. But that's not all that's buried there...

Sixty-five years after the war, the Sioux tribe has contracted an ordnance removal company to defuse any remaining ammunition in the Stronghold. When the company finds a human arm near a live bomb, Tanno and the Tribal police are called to investigate. As the body is exhumed, two more are discovered. The remains are close together, but the murders were decades apart-and the story behind them is about to blow up...

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781645992233
Publisher:	Encircle Publications, LLC
Publication date:	12/16/2021
Series:	Spirit Road Mystery , #2
Pages:	326
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.88(d)

About the Author

C. M. Wendelboe entered the law enforcement profession when he was discharged from the Marines as the Vietnam war was winding down. In the 1970s, his career included assisting federal and tribal law enforcement agencies embroiled in conflicts with American Indian Movement activists in South Dakota. He moved to Gillette, Wyoming, and found his niche, where he remained a sheriff's deputy for more than twenty-five years. During his thirty-eight-year career in law enforcement he had served successful stints as police chief, policy adviser, and other supervisory roles for several agencies. Yet he always has felt most proud of "working the street." He was a patrol supervisor when he retired to pursue his true vocation as a fiction writer. Wendelboe is a prolific author of murder mysteries with a Western flair, as well as traditional Westerns. He writes the Spirit Road Mysteries, the Bitter Wind Mystery series, the Nelson Lane Frontier Mysteries, and the Tucker Ashley Western Adventure series.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Praise for Death Along the Spirit Road

“Wendelboe has introduced a powerful new character to Western crime fiction.” —Craig Johnson

“Grabs you by the lapels and refuses to let go…Storytelling at its best.” —Margaret Coel

“Absorbing.”—Publishers Weekly

Editorial Reviews

Wendelboe’s serviceable follow-up to his first mystery set in the South Dakota Badlands, 2011’s Death Along the Spirit Road, has FBI agent Manny Tanno reassessing his Native American heritage after being assigned to the Pine Ridge Reservation. The recent discovery of human remains in a remote and inhospitable area of Pine Ridge used as a bombing range during WWII reveals murders took place there many years apart. New deaths—and an attempt on Manny’s own life—show that something in the maze of scorched rocks must be worth killing for. Manny must cope with flaky or obstructive members of the Oglala Sioux Tribal Police, the mistrust of local residents, and his own uneasy ruminations about what the spirit of the law demands. Wendelboe’s own experience as a western lawman helps make the dogged police work convincing despite fuzzy plotting and stolid prose. Agent: Bill Contardi, Brandt & Hochman Literary. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for Wendelboe's Spirit Road Mysteries:

"Wendelboe has attained master's status as a crafter of fine fiction. Finely drawn, fascinating characters, a feel for the land, and some of the sharpest dialog in crime fiction..."

-Kathleen O'Neal Gear and W. Michael Gear, New York Times bestselling authors

"Lakota FBI agent Manny Tanno is among the most compelling sleuths you're likely to meet."

-Margaret Coel, New York Times bestselling author

"With Lakota FBI agent Manny Tanno, Wendelboe has introduced a powerful new character to Western crime fiction."

-Craig Johnson, New York Times bestselling author

From the Publisher

An FBI agent's cold case gets hotter by the day. Manny Tanno thought he'd left his early years on the Pine Ridge Reservation far behind, but his presumed failure to solve a case (Death Along the Spirit Road, 2011) gets him reassigned from D.C. back to Pine Ridge. When three bodies are found in a bombed-out old Buick in the Stronghold area of Badlands National Park, Manny's investigation reminds him that the past won't stay buried. One of the bodies is identified as that of a mining engineer. Another is that of Oglala holy man and famous artist, Moses Ten Bears. A more recent body from the 1960s is that of a college student whose roommate at the time was Alexander "Ham" High Elk, who's been nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court. High Elk is the grandson of Senator Clayton Charles, who's remained Moses Ten Bears' close friend even though Clayton never married the Native American woman who bore his child. Not only is the case politically sensitive and hard to solve, but Manny ignores his diabetes while struggling to resurrect his love life and help a young tribal police officer who's being sexually harassed by the niece of the police chief. Despite trying to forget it, Manny has a strong connection with his past that will help him solve the case if he can escape death at the hands of a determined killer. An exciting and quirky mystery that seamlessly shifts between past and present, offering a number of finely delineated characters and a strong sense of life on the reservation and the beauties of a hostile land.

Kirkus Reviews