NAIL'S CROSSING

Two Oklahoma police officers from separate forces work together to solve a series of bloody crimes in Lackey’s debut.

Bill Maytubby, an officer in the tribal Lighthorse Police of Chickasaw Nation, is a clever tracker and book lover with catholic interests. He’s investigating the murder of Majesty Tate, who was stabbed to death with a custom-made Bowie knife that Maytubby believes belongs to Austin Love, a meth dealer seen with the victim. Maytubby’s friend Hannah Bond, a tough 6-foot-plus county deputy, has strong feelings about Majesty’s death because her own sister was raped and murdered. Along with colleagues from several other police forces, the two chase Love all over southern Oklahoma in a series of wild rides over dirt roads and through creek beds. When they finally catch him, he denies killing Majesty and refuses to talk about the links Maytubby’s turned up between Majesty, a strange-looking, mysterious preacher, and well-connected lawyer/politician Solomon Stoddard. Maytubby goes all the way to Cajun country to follow up a lead on the preacher who calls himself David Woodley but is really Basile Trepanier, a man whom Stoddard got acquitted in several nonviolent criminal matters. Then a wily man on a fast motorcycle starts picking off possible witnesses in the case. Though most of this rash of violence falls outside his jurisdiction, Maytubby is as stubborn and independent as Bond, and neither one is about to give up on the case the powers that be wish would just go away.

A captivating look at a little-known corner of rural Oklahoma burning up in a drought, rife with drug problems, yet peopled by tenacious, idiosyncratic characters you can’t help rooting for.