SILENT ARE THE DEAD

One mystery bleeds into another as a Native woman and her cousin seek a missing headdress that may have instigated a murder.

Mud Sawpole and her cousin Denny have gathered with their tribal elders to bless the Jefferson Peace Medal outside the Kiowa Museum. Cleansing the medal’s negative energy, especially after the duo had to solve a murder to recover the precious symbol, brings a healing sense of contentment to Mud. After the ceremony, she tries to get herself back into the head space of her adopted Silicon Valley home and work, but when she and Denny see that tribe leader Wyatt Walker’s office has been tossed, they know the danger isn’t over. Is this about the medal, other relics in the museum, or the fracking operation that’s commenced on tribal lands? Things get more complicated when the cousins run into Mud’s former flame Georgie Crow, who claims that she just saw the body of Gerald Bean, the gallery owner bent on stealing Native art. When Mud and Denny look, the body’s gone. Georgie begs them to figure out what’s going on to protect Buck, Georgie’s ne’er-do-well husband, whom Eli Tonay claims stole his family’s headdress. The overlapping mysteries send Mud and Denny on an investigation marked by a room full of venomous snakes, the disappearance of Gerald Bean’s body, and enough obstacles to make it clear that someone doesn’t want them to learn the truth.

An immersive cultural experience with Kiowa culture and language wrapped in a mystery plot.