Wounded and estranged from his partner and love interest, Anna Turnipseed, Emmett Parker has come home after 13 years of federal law enforcement with the Bureau of Indian Affairs. At once a son of the Comanche and a government investigator, he has ties to both sides-and is about to discover which side pulls harder.

"In Mitchell's impressive fifth mystery (after 2003's Sky Woman Falling) featuring federal investigator Emmett Quanah Parker, the badly injured Parker has returned home to Oklahoma. His Comanche brethren, along with members of neighboring tribes, come together to honor Parker with a dance. A surprise appearance by the U.S. president — who for some odd reason is unnamed — confirms the high esteem in which Parker and his work are held. Days later, however, Parker comes to the aid of his old friend Jerome Crowe and finds himself the object of an intense manhunt. Crowe, who worked for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, had confided to Parker that he was investigating money from land use fees being rerouted to other accounts. When Crowe is murdered, Parker is the prime suspect in the land-use scam as well as Crowe's death. It's a little farfetched that the well-regarded Parker could fall so far from grace, but the longstanding animosity between Parker and federal agent Michael Mangas, another boyhood acquaintance, makes the suspicion more understandable. If the primary villain is a bit too removed from the heart of the story, the endless tumble of breathless events, including Parker's rushing into practice artillery fire on an army base and a truly mind-boggling feat involving train tracks, makes that a very small complaint. Agent, Eleanor Wood at the Spectrum Agency. (Nov. 2)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information, Inc.)

The newest novel of suspense from the national bestselling author of Sky Woman Falling.

Kirk Mitchell served as a deputy sheriff on the Paiute-Shoshone Indian reservations of the desert county that includes Death Valley. He was also a SWAT sergeant in Southern California before devoting his time to writing.