The Spirit Caller

In a slow-moving fourth appearance, Molly Bearpaw, major crimes investigator for the Cherokee Nation Marshal Service in Tahlequah, Okla., contends with a cantankerous sheriff and the disconcerting appearance of her father, who deserted the family long ago. Talia Wind, a self-appointed New Age Shaman hoping to communicate with a Cherokee ghost at the local Native American Research Library, is found hanging from an ancient gallows. Hager assembles a gaggle of possible suspects: Talia's disgruntled ex-husband, Dell Greer; Agasuyed Beaver, a Cherokee medicine man who feared Talia threatened his leadership; Ina, Agasuyed's wife; a local minister with whom the dead woman argued; Talia's married lover and his wife; a confused Alzheimer's sufferer; even Molly's father. Molly argues with the sheriff and conducts fruitless interviews, aided by her boyfriend, Deputy Sheriff D.J. Kennedy, and her assistant, Natalie, who happens to be Talia's niece. It doesn't take much to identify either the culprit, who stands out like a giraffe in a cow pasture, or the motive, a coyly persistent subplot. Molly, who relies on imagination more than facts, is almost killed while solving the case in an action-packed finale that is an anomaly in this generally deliberate series (Seven Black Stones, 1995). Hager's other series protagonist, Mitch Bushyhead, is far more astute. Author tour. (May) FYI: Also in May, Mysterious Press is publishing the latest Mitch Bushyhead title, The Fire Carrier (1996), in paperback.