This debut mystery from a fresh voice in Southwestern fiction stakes out the common ground between Tony Hillerman, Elmore Leonard, and Cormac McCarthy. In a remote corner of the Chickasaw Nation, tribal Lighthorse policeman Bill Maytubby and county deputy Hannah Bond discover the buzzard-ravaged body of Majesty Tate, a young drifter with a blank past. They comb Oklahoma’s rock prairie, river … prairie, river bottoms, and hard-bitten small towns for traces of her last days.
Tate was seen dancing with Austin Love, a violent local meth dealer fresh out of prison. An Oklahoma City motel clerk connects her with an aspiring politician. An oil-patch roustabout and a shady itinerant preacher provide dubious leads. Ne’er-do-wells start dying off.
A fluke lead propels Maytubby deep into Louisiana’s bayou country, where a Cajun shrimper puts him on the scent of a bizarre conspiracy. He and Bond reunite in the Chickasaw Nation for the eventual face-off at Nail’s Crossing.
“As fine a mystery series debut as I’ve read in a long time.”–Craig Johnson, New York Times bestselling author of the Longmire series
“Thrilling…Lackey’s exciting story unwinds like a rattlesnake.”–Bill Loehfelm, author of The Devil’s Muse
“A captivating look at a little-known corner of rural Oklahoma…rife with drug problems, yet peopled by tenacious, idiosyncratic characters you can’t help rooting for.”—Kirkus Reviews
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Good story. Too many roads and places to keep up with. And the conversations were hard for me to understand. The whole book was just hard to follow.
Interesting. Took a while to get the flow and to determine who was who. Good mystery and believable police work.
Nice introduction to two new characters in the “buddy cop” vein.
Unexplained terms and phrases, too much detail on roads. Very disjointed.
Love the western type Native nation police force books. This is a good one.
Apparently written as a Movie script. Needs strong editing.
This book was surprisingly interesting to me. I enjoy Tony Hillerman’s stories immensely, and I’ve been looking for others like his. Nail’s Crossing isn’t quite “there” but it is still very good. I’ll definitely look for more by this author. This book began with the characters unknown to the reader, and it took a while for me to sort everyone out, but once over that, I was totally into the story. Good book.
I’d say the book is okay…once again there is a beginning ( murder), middle (lots of running around and talking),and an end(murder solved). It’s very typical of today’s mystery…very little plot. The words above do not suit this book.
Very accurate portrayal of Oklahoma!
A twist on every page
Hard to get going at first but picked up speed and interest as it went on. Very well researched.
It takes a few pages to follow the dialog and you will be re-reading passages until all of a sudden it all clicks. It’s a fast moving “who done it and why” that is a lot of fun and easy to like. The main characters, Sergeant Bill Maytubby* of the Lighthorse Police and 6′ 2″ Deputy Hannah Bond are both Native American law officers working in and around Ada, Oklahoma. Their interactions with each other and general population offer a rare insight in current Native American and American integration. I am not familiar with that area of American but I learned a lot reading this book.
*As Maytubby was such an unusual name I searched it. There are 184 Maytubbys in the USA, most in Oklahoma.
This is the series I have been looking for since Tony Hillerman passed. I was enthralled with his descriptive vocabulary.
A great crime solving story, with believable & engaging personalities. Detailed backgrounds that make you feel like you are there alongside the characters. Intriguing insights into Native American culture. Highly recommend
The use of multiple OK vernaculars was exhilarating, once I realized I was in a new world. The descriptions of people and places transported me like the writing of the Hillermans and Craig Johnson. Looking forward to the next book.
Another great Native American tribal policeman!
I really enjoyed this book. While I never lived in OK I did live just across the border in KS. The descriptions of the land, roads and the people reminded me of Hillerman.
I didn’t care for this book. I couldn’t get through the first chapter. Too wordy.
I really enjoyed this book after reading many books about Native Americans in the Southwest. But I found it difficult to follow with all the names of roads that I could not pronounce. The author explained all the research that was done to get all of this correct but I sometimes ‘lost’ the story in the midst of descriptions. I just wasn’t that familiar with Oklahoma.
Poorly written. Too many insider references and too much relatively meaningless geography unless someone were familiar with that part of Oklahoma.