cover image Anadarko: A Kiowa Country Mystery

Anadarko: A Kiowa Country Mystery

Tom Holm. Univ. of Arizona, $17.95 trade paper (248p) ISBN 978-0-8165-3181-3

Holm’s slow-moving sequel to 2008’s The Osage Rose finds white Tulsa PI J.D. Daugherty and his Cherokee assistant, Hoolie Smith, embroiled in all kinds of trouble in Anadarko, Okla., in the early 1920s. The two are looking for missing geologist Frank Shotz in a town riven by corruption, prejudice, and greed. Only a few hours after their arrival, Hoolie is almost hit by a bullet fired by a white man, bootlegger Festus MacFarland, who was gunning instead for Chester Boyiddle, a Kiowa. Caddo County sheriff Ferrell Wynn is at odds with Anadarko’s police chief, George Collins; the members of the Charging Horse family, including the Boyiddles, are warring with Festus; and Violet Comstock, who owns a diner and lots more, wants Daugherty to clean up the town. Daugherty and Hoolie manage to cause the various factions to turn on one another in this bleak story, in which just about everybody is prejudiced, from the KKK to officials of the Indian Office. (Oct.)