All the Beautiful Sinners

May 5, 2003
This second novel by Jones (The Fast Red Road: A Plainsong) follows Texas Deputy Sheriff Jim Doe in his chase after the Tin Man, a sociopath who has been abducting Indian children in the heartland for a decade. Jones, who is a member of the Blackfeet Nation, infuses this cleverly plotted detective story with Indian lore: the Tin Man enters Indian homes during tornadoes, always kidnapping a pair of children—a brother and sister—bringing to life an old Indian belief that storms sometimes take a malicious human form. As he tracks the Tin Man along dusty Texas highways and small towns across the country, Doe, who is also Indian, must face his own troubled family history, which includes a mother who abandoned his family and a sister who has been missing for nearly 20 years. The book masterfully plays with the serial killer genre, walking a line between convention and invention and delving into the psychology of both killer and detective. The plot is chilling in itself, but Jones's brisk, clean, visceral prose gives the novel its edgy suspense. Even a brief description of a mundane waiting room, for example, becomes unnerving when Jones describes the protagonists having "left the waiting room chairs at odd angles, the television looking down on them at a severe angle. The coins in Jim Doe's pants jingled as they walked. The hall was seventeen years long." Author tour.

April 15, 2003
As the serial killer genre has grown in popularity, so has the body count. In Robert Bloch's masterpiece, " Psycho," we had four victims, including two done in before the novel even begins. Now in this book, we have dozens of victims strewn along an Apian Way of viscera and gore. This sanguine saga is about a morose and languid Texas deputy sheriff, Jim Doe, who helps a team of FBI profilers track down the notorious "Tin Man." For the last 15 years, the killer has been abducting Indian children, including Doe's sister, during tornadoes. Now the Tin Man's activities are on the rise. Doe and the agents follow the killer back and forth from the heartland to the East Coast until you begin to wonder who is tracking who in this murderous old Land of Oz. For those who like their mayhem loaded on thick, this book will be a creepy double pleasure, but those sensitive to mountains of graphic violence, especially when directed toward children, might want to steer clear.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2003, American Library Association.)