At Ease with the Dead

By Walter Satterthwait

Croft combs New Mexico for a Navajo who's been dead since 1866.

On a fishing trip in the mountains outside of Santa Fe, private detective Joshua Croft hears pistol fire. He finds an elderly Navajo encircled by a trio of trigger-happy yokels, demanding the old man dance for them. Croft disarms them, sends them packing, and returns to Santa Fe a few days later. He has nearly forgotten about the incident by the time the Navajo turns up in his office to ask him to find a body.

Missing since the 1920s, it is the corpse of a long-dead victim of an American campaign against the Navajo. For years nightmares have plagued one of his descendants, who wants the body found so that the dead man's soul can rest. As Croft searches for the remains, he learns that there are still those who will kill to keep New Mexico's bloody past buried.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Head of Zeus
• Release date: Jun 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781784088422

Walter Satterthwait

Walter Satterthwait (b. 1946) is an author of mysteries and historical fiction. A fan of mystery novels from a young age, he spent high school immersed in the works of Dashiell Hammett and Mickey Spillane. While working as a bartender in New York in the late 1970s, he wrote his first book: an adventure novel, Cocaine Blues (1979), about a drug dealer on the run from a pair of killers.