Death Along the Spirit Road

January 3, 2011
Wendelboe's debut, the absorbing first in a new Native American series, introduces FBI special agent Manny Tanno, a former Oglala Sioux tribal cop. When someone buries a war club in the head of Jason Red Cloud, an ambitious developer who put together a coalition of interests to build a resort overlooking the Wounded Knee site on South Dakota's Pine Ridge Reservation, Tanno reluctantly leaves his FBI academy teaching job to investigate. Tanno must face the enmity of acting chief Leon "Lumpy" Looks Twice as well as the tribe's distrust of FBI agents rooted in the American Indian Movement fiascos of the 1970s. To complicate matters further, Tanno's brother, Reuben, is a prime suspect. The residual animosities that divided the tribe during AIM's heyday, the awful heritage of the Wounded Knee Massacre, and the plight of the residents of the "poorest county in the nation" form a somber backdrop.

January 15, 2011

Eighteen years away from South Dakota has not erased the pull of the past for an FBI agent come home.

Manny Tanno feels that he's the FBI's token Native American who gets all the cases on reservations. Although he's an instructor at the FBI academy, his boss sends him to investigate a murder on the Pine Ridge Reservation, where he grew up, and where his adored older brother was jailed for a murder that took place during violent AIM activity in the 1970s. The present-day victim, Jason Red Cloud, was found on the site of his planned resort village with a war club buried in his head. The Oglala Sioux teachings Manny has suppressed for many years come rushing back as he deals with friends and enemies from his past. Red Cloud's resort had promised new opportunities to the reservation, one of the poorest spots in the country, but Manny soon discovers that Red Cloud had no money and many enemies. The suspects in the killing include Manny's brother Reuben, now a holy man, and Reuben's ex-wife, who's determined to protect the tribe's money and her daughter's reputation. With many hands against him and little help from the local authorities, Manny has to count on himself to solve the crime.

Wendelboe paints a vivid portrait of life on the reservation and deftly mixes history with a satisfying mystery in this series debut.

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