Ten-Acre Rock

Starred review from June 1, 2023
Police officers from two different forces combine their talents to solve a series of crimes. Bill Maytubby, a sergeant in the Chickasaw Lighthorse Police, is deeply connected to the land and people he loves. His friend and frequent partner in police work Hannah Bond is a deputy in Johnston County, Oklahoma, who's 6-foot-2, tough as nails, and a survivor of childhood trauma. LeeRoy Sickles, a friend of Hannah's, is out hunting when he finds the remains of a body burned in a charcoal kiln that may be on Native American land. Nearby is a shack occupied by White hippie squatters. Following up, Maytubby and Hannah find a skull along with bones and some unidentified blobs that might once have been a sneaker. When Sickles is run off the road by a black GMC, a complex investigation begins. Although the Oklahoma Bureau of Investigation takes over the case, Maytubby and Hannah, no sticklers for rules, conduct separate investigations of their own, using their expertise and a network of friends who notice things. They're each intensely interesting and believable characters whose inner strength helps move the investigation along. The body is tentatively identified as that of a young Chickasaw man who'd recently discovered that a series of arcane laws assigned the land beneath the shack and kiln to his family, which would lose it to the squatters if he did not claim it soon. Talking with the young man's family, who knew nothing about the land they stand to regain, Maytubby hopes to find a connection between that and a series of other crimes plaguing the area. The latest in this superb series is a unique police procedural with an authentic Oklahoma feel.

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