From Publishers Weekly
Investigator Phoebe Siegel is hired to clear the name of a young Native American accused of murdering a white man who was stealing artifacts from a reservation. Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
Headstrong private detective Phoebe Siegel ( By Evil Means, LJ 1/93) remains ignorant of Native American religious beliefs even though she lives near Billings, Montana, and has several Indian friends. Despite this deficiency, the family of an Indian youth accused of possible murder and graverobbing enlists her help in clearing him. Controversy over lost Indian heritage, smuggling of valuable artifacts, and murder in Phoebe's own backyard add interesting--if somewhat routine--elements to this series title. For larger collections.Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
Monday Brown, who trades in Native American artifacts, is missing and presumed dead after bragging that he had discovered a motherlode of antiquities. Matthew Wolf is under arrest on suspicion of murder, even though the body hasn't turned up yet. The Wolf family hires Billings, Montana, private eye Phoebe Siegel to investigate. This second Phoebe Siegel mystery more than fulfills the promise of By Evil Means ; the half-Jewish, half-Catholic Siegel is a believable mix of confidence, self-doubt, determination, angst, and humor. Following Monday Brown's trail leads Siegel on a classic Native American vision quest in which the dimensions of reality can be altered and the border between life and death seems easily breached. As Phoebe's mind-expanding mystical adventure shatters her narrow worldview, the reader realizes that author Prowell intends to challenge her audience with something more than the case at hand. Muller, Grafton, and Paretsky may have set the table by introducing female sleuths to the hard-boiled genre, but it's Prowell who shows every indication of taking the female private eye to the next level, beyond formula. This ambitious, multifaceted novel announces the maturation of a major mystery series. Wes Lukowsky


From Kirkus Reviews
Yellowstone County deputy Kyle Old Wolf's relatives descend on Billings, Mont., shamus Phoebe Siegel with the plea that she go to bat for Kyle's cousin Matthew, accused of killing suspect Crow antiquities trader Monday Brown. It's a good choice, because family's important to Phoebe, as she showed in By Evil Means (1993)--there'll be more domestic drama with her brother Father Michael here--and because Phoebe turns out to be more sensitive than she knew, or wanted to be, to the spiritual values of the female Wolfs, who've formed a sweat lodge with Monday's wife, Ardena. Phoebe will need all the help and guidance she can get- -whether it's from Matthew's great-grandmother Anna, who appears to her in an uncanny posthumous vision, or from psychologist Jenni Cramer's white-folks' medicine--because menacing Jurgen Mueller, the front man for a European antiquities purchasing group, takes time out from beating up hookers and terrorizing Matthew (who's been freed on bail only to go into hiding) to inform Phoebe that he's got her number too. Prowell's bid for the Tony Hillerman audience has a colorful (and politically correct) background, a plot that doesn't skimp on complications, and an irresistible heroine with endless family problems--just about everything but the dramatic clarity that keeps the resonance of Hillerman's tales under control. (Author tour) -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Book Description
Sandra West Prowell's second Shamus Award-nominated mystery proves Phoebe Siegel is ready for readers of Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone and Sara Paretsky's V. I.Warshawski novels.Lauded by The New York Times Book Review, this sizzling mystery explores crime on an Indian reservation. The victim, Monday Brown, is a white man who pillaged the Native American culture for profit. The suspect is Matthew Wolf, a young Crow traditionalist who'd do anything to preserve his heritage. Investigator Phoebe Siegel, hired to clear Matthew's name, discovers the truth in the sacred mysteries of the Crow culture.


From the Inside Flap
Sandra West Prowell's second Shamus  Award-nominated mystery proves Phoebe Siegel is ready for  readers of Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone and Sara  Paretsky's V. I.Warshawski novels.Lauded by  The New York Times Book Review, this  sizzling mystery explores crime on an Indian  reservation. The victim, Monday Brown, is a white man who  pillaged the Native American culture for profit. The  suspect is Matthew Wolf, a young Crow  traditionalist who'd do anything to preserve his heritage.  Investigator Phoebe Siegel, hired to clear Matthew's  name, discovers the truth in the sacred mysteries  of the Crow culture.


Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
I could hear them before I could see them.  The Dodge van stopped at the end of the lane that led to my house.  It was a class act, painted a deep cherry red with black and silver detailing and tinted windows all around.  It was a knockout piece of vehicle and didn't belong to anyone I knew.  Yet.

I walked over to the spigot on the side of the porch and turned off the water, dropped the hose I was holding, and squinted against the sun to see who was inside the van.  No one was getting out, and it was making me nervous.

My house sits in an isolated area; my nearest neighbor is a good half mile away.  It had been vacant for many years and had the reputation of being a hangout for beer busts and God only knew what else.  Six months ago I moved in and had the cops out every weekend for the first month.  Reputations are easy to earn and die hard, even for one-hundred-year-old three-story houses.

I was about to turn and walk into the house when the door on the side of the van slid back, and several Indians piled out.  Two young boys and a girl bolted toward me, ran past, and disappeared into the trees to the right of the house. A tall man, over six feet, with long, traditional braids, a John Deere duck-billed cap on his head, wearing Tony Lamas, Levi's, and a pearl-buttoned western shirt, strode toward me.  His hands were tucked into the pockets of his jeans, and his face, the color of earthen clay, showed no emotion as he covered the ground between us with long strides.

A brooding younger man, eighteen, maybe twenty, leaned against the van and listened with a deaf ear as a young woman chewed on him about something I couldn't make out.  He reached in through an open window on the passenger side and brought out a can, lifted it to his lips, and drank.  The young woman looked at me quickly, a flush of embarrassment on her face.

I didn't see the two women on either side of an old, old woman until they were almost upon me.  No one said a word until the old woman was led to the stairs going up to the porch and gently sat down.  The man standing a few feet from me spit chew on the ground and looked me dead in the eyes.  I could hear the kids, squealing and laughing as they ran out of the woods and bounded up the stairs onto the porch.  Immediately, all three were on the rail, using it as a tightrope.

I took a step toward the porch, prepared to rescue, or maim, whichever came first, one or all of them.  "Hey! You could get--"

"Kyle Old Wolf is my cousin.  He said we should come to you."

"Who? He said what?" I was doing one of those head turns that you see only at a tennis match, trying to give equal time to the kids and the man who was talking to me.  Then the phone started ringing inside the house.

"Could you wait just a minute?" I reached the phone on the seventh or eighth ring.  If I didn't sound out of breath or hysterical or both, it was a miracle of self-control.

"Phoebe," the familiar voice said bluntly.  "I thought I should call."

"You're a little late, Kyle.  All, and I mean all, of them are here."

He laughed.  "The whole family came, huh?"

"Oh, I don't know.  It could be two, maybe three families for what that's worth.  What's going on?"

"Been reading the papers?"

"Only my horoscope and 'The Far Side.' "

"Have you followed the news about the woman down on Twenty-seventh Street South and Montana Avenue who reported a body that fell across the hood of her car while she was stopped at the light?"

"Who hasn't? I thought they deep-sixed that because they couldn't verify anything."

"They did.  Until she gave them a positive ID on the guy and he turned up missing."

"And?"

"Monday Brown."

"Monday? I just saw him a month ago."

"You may have.  As it stands..."

"You think it was him?"

"I don't know.  But they've been holding a twenty-year-old cousin of mine, Matthew Wolf."

"You've got a lot of cousins, Kyle," I said as I turned around and looked out the door.  I could hear the kids but couldn't see them.  The muscles in my neck had tied themselves into little knots.

He laughed again.  "A couple of hundred or so."

"I'm almost afraid to ask.  What are they doing here?"

"Is one of them a big, tall guy with long hair?"

"It is."

"That's Matthew's father.  Is there an old woman?"

"Old, Kyle? You call that old? I'm not even sure she's alive."

"That's Matthew's great-grandmother, Anna.  And you've probably got his brother and a couple of his sisters and a few nieces and nephews."

"Wait a minute.  Did you say Matthew Wolf?"

"Right."

"Isn't he the kid who came back from the Gulf all decorated? They had a big write-up about him in the paper.  He's involved with some radical Indian group that's been working the reservations in the state.  It was quite an article. Bright kid."

"One and the same."

I felt someone standing behind me and turned.  My eyes widened, and my breath caught in my throat when I saw the raven-haired little girl cradling Stud in her arms.  "Jesus! Kyle, hold on a minute." I stretched the phone cord toward her.  "Honey, that cat hates people.  He'll scratch your eyes out and peel off your cheeks."

I could hear Stud purring from where I stood.  The girl said nothing as she nuzzled her face in the yellow fur that covered his twenty-five-pound body. She stroked his back as his tail switched back and forth in an upside-down arch.  All I could do was shake my head as she walked around me and sat in a chair.  I couldn't remember Stud ever looking so content.

I lifted the phone back to my ear and craned my neck to see what was going on outside.  "Kyle, maybe you should be here."

"Can't do it, Phoebe.  I just wanted to let you know what was going on."

"How does Matthew Wolf figure into all this?"

"They popped him three days ago down at the Arcade."

"For what?"

"Suspicion of murder."

"Let me guess.  Monday Brown"

"Right."

"When did they find Monday's body?"

"They haven't."