Facing Rushmore

Earnest FBI agent Charlie Hart begins his debut fictive foray (two more Hart novels are planned) claustrophobically, as Charlie rigorously interrogates an Indian demonstrator named John Brown Dog, ringleader of a protest group that has vandalized the St. Louis Arch. Over the whole of Part I, written completely in dialogue, John answers Charlie's questions obliquely, offering detours and metaphors and elliptical threats spread over many chapters. In Part II, Charlie puzzles over John's yarn. Is Brown Dog an enraged crackpot or a terrorist threat? Are his weapons, ghost dancing and a mysterious black powder, just to name a couple, truly powerful or dependent upon the superstition of the targeted victims? Charlie can find no evidence of crime, but as Indian protest swells—Mount Rushmore, a site sacred to Native Americans, is threatened—government bosses order brute force to curb the group; Charlie, who doesn't believe that John Brown Dog is violent, is tasked with taking him down. Martin (The Crying Heart Tattoo ) creates real tension out of Charlie's dilemma, particularly in the runup to Part III and the aftermath it chronicles. But Martin's handling of the mystical elements shifts unsteadily from allegory to thriller to clumsy social commentary. Despite some compelling scenes and genuine chills, the whole is a lot less than the sum of the parts. (Nov.)