Cry Dance

March 1, 1999
Edgar Award nominee Mitchell (Deep Valley Malice), an ex-California SWAT cop formerly assigned to the reservations of Inyo County, offers a taut thriller about criminal control of tribal gambling casinos. Peppered with bureaucratic legalese and illuminated by fascinating lore of the Southwestern tribes, the plot is layered with authenticity. Investigating the mutilation murder of a Las Vegas-based officer of the Bureau of Land Management, Emmett Quanah Parker, part-white, part-Comanche investigator for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, is assigned to work with rookie FBI agent, half-Modoc, half-Japanese Anna Turnipseed. Although the BLM agent's body was found on a remote reservation in Arizona with her face neatly sliced off, it becomes evident that she was killed near the borax pits in Death Valley, Calif., while working on an Indian land trade involving the site for a proposed super casino near an off-ramp of Interstate 15. While Parker is in Carson City to interrogate the gaming syndicate's lawyer, Parker's old enemy, FBI agent Burk Hagiman, defies Parker's judgment and sends Anna undercover to work as a dealer at a backwater casino, where, of course, she encounters danger. The complex plot slowly reveals a conspiracy involving Jamaicans, Vegas hitmen and double-dealing Native Americans. Throughout, Mitchell tightly controls his material, his bitterness over the white man's legacy to Native Americans evident in historical asides. Unfortunately, the heart-stopping action is marred by his preoccupation with landscape, too many cardboard cutout bad Indians and a cartoonish nemesis. The climax based on the villain's change of heart is too contrived to maintain full credibility, blurring the earlier promise of a nail-biting end. Despite all this, Parker and Turnipseed make a memorable literary pair.

This mystery about the criminal control of tribal gambling casinos is illuminated by intriguing lore of the Southwestern tribes. Stefan Rudnicki's vocal interpretations add intensity and gravitas to the complex plot involving double-dealing Native Americans, Jamaicans, and Vegas hit men. He also creates an engaging baritone voice for Emmett Quanah Parker, the BIA's part-white, part-Comanche investigator, and a light but serious one for rookie FBI agent Anna Turnipseed, who is assigned to work with him. Rudnicki does such a good job with voices, creating complete dramatic characterizations, that listeners may forget that the story has a single narrator. S.C.A. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine