Echoes From The Grave-S.D. Tooley

Echoes From The Grave
S.D. Tooley
Full Moon Publishing, Aug 2007, $26.00
P.O. Box 408, Schererville, IN 46375
ISBN: 9780978540234

The digging at a construction site on the south side of Lake Michigan uncovered many human bones. Everyone assumed that a Native American burial site was inadvertently exhumed.

As the local tribes want the site preserved as a cemetery, Chasen Heights detective in charge of the investigation Jake Mitchell arrives at the dig accompanied by his detective wife Sam Casey. She quickly informs her spouse that the remains of one of the dead told her that they were murdered three years ago. Jake knows to heed Sam’s Native American psychic skills. However, the bones go missing before they can be tested as if someone fears what they will tell will affirm Sam’s information.

Few if any paranormal police procedurals are as good as the Casey-Mitchell Lake Michigan whodunits (see NOTHING ELSE MATTERS, WHEN THE DEAD SPEAK and RESTLESS SPIRIT). The latest entry ECHOES FROM THE GRAVE is a terrific whodunit as a cunning person manipulates the construction crew and the Native Americans to insure Mitchell cannot learn the truth although his sleuthing spouse Sam has pointed him in the right direction. The investigation brings to life some of the history of the Lake Michigan area while the husband and wife detectives are a delightful pair as they do their jobs professionally enhanced by her talent and that of her Native American family. Although construction sites in the Chasen Heights area seem extra dangerous, S. D. Tooley provides an exhilarating fast paced mystery that readers will appreciate.

Harriet Klausner