Listening Ones

Once again, the Pacific Northwest--its people, its landscape and, especially, its animals--comes alive in Stokes's (The Tree People) talented hands. Two murders occur on Quinault Indian land on Washington's Olympic Peninsula. It falls to Jordan Tidewater--shaman, tribal sheriff, single mother and U.S. deputy marshal--to solve the cases. It's never a mystery who's responsible for the first killing, a brutal sacrificial dismemberment of an eight-year-old orphan. The youth's Chilean uncle and grandfather initiated the ritual slaughter for entrepreneurial reasons. The second crime, a sadistic sexual assault on an 11-year-old girl, is clumsily resolved in a written confession. In the process of solving the crimes, Jordan falls in love with the boy's uncle. Though awkwardly delineated, the love affair is suspenseful as readers wonder when Jordan will catch on to the man's perfidy. But most rewarding are the legends and traditions of the Quinault Indians, particularly those relating to animals. As a shaman trained to hear the ancient spirits of the listening ones (bear, salmon, whale, eagle, raven) and to respond to her own spirit animal (cougar), Jordan outsleuths her twin brother, who's the police chief, and her FBI counterparts. A cataclysmic tsunami during a lunar eclipse and the ceremonial confrontation with the courage-inspiring klokwhalle lead to a final ironic vengeance, which belongs to a black bear, a Siberian tiger and an orca. Despite a cumbersome subplot, Stokes tells this richly atmospheric tale in a tone of restrained assurance. (July)