Kris Lackey knows Oklahoma. Born and raised in the state, he returned to the city of Norman after a long career teaching English at various universities.
In 2017, he published the first in the Chickasaw Nation Mystery Series, adding what Blackstone Publishing calls a, “fresh voice in Southwestern fiction.”
The four-book series focuses on Chickasaw Lighthorse police officer Bill Maytubby and Johnston County Deputy Hannah Bond. The two work together solving cases on and around the Chickasaw Nation reservation.
Part of what makes the series so compelling is the gritty plot combined with a visceral sense of the land. You can taste the dust and feel the sticky tar of the asphalt as the characters investigate cases across Oklahoma.
Lackey punctuates his descriptions with detail that extends to everything from a ramshackle diner to nuance in dialects and turns of phrase. And then there’s the heart-pounding shootouts and action sequences that each case escalates to.
If you’ve been craving Southwestern Crime Fiction, the Chickasaw Nation Mystery Series has everything you’re looking for. The dialogue is sharp, the cases grisly, and the landscape unforgiving.
A perfect combination for a crime series.
And the best part? You can read the complete series right now.
Here’s every book in the series to help you get started.
Nail's Crossing
When tribal Lighthorse policeman Bill Maytubby and County Deputy Hannah Bond discover the body of a local drifter, they are left with more questions than answers.
Majesty Tate seems to have a blank past, and the buzzards destroyed any evidence her body held. Her last hours alive were spent dancing with a local meth dealer newly released from prison.
Then a motel clerk said she was with an aspiring politician.
As more dubious leads trickle in, a fluke sends Maytubby to the Louisiana bayou where he stumbles on a bizarre conspiracy thanks to a Cajun shrimper.
But when he returns to Chickasaw, he and Bond are forced into a confrontation that they might not walk away from.
Greasy Bend
During a sleet storm, a local farmer finds a body in the Washita River. When County Deputy Hannah Bond arrives on the scene, she realizes it’s her friend, an elderly woman named Alice.
Meanwhile, robbers pose as armored car guards at the Golden Play Casino and kill a local stickball hero. The man was a friend of Chickasaw Lighthorse detective Bill Maytubby.
Bond and Maytubby work together to piece together the connection between these two deaths, taking them through the Oklahoma badlands.
Their investigation takes them to a remote airstrip where drugs and untraceable weapons are being smuggled. But the criminals have no intention of giving up their ideal operating site.
And they’ll go to violent extremes to stop Bond and Maytubby from interfering.
Butcher Pen Road
When a deaf boy finds a body in Pennington Creek, Lighthorse Sergeant Bill Maytubby and County Deputy Hannah arrive at a puzzling crime scene. The angler is wearing waders far too big for his body, and the fish in his creel aren’t local to the creek.
The discovery interferes with a local man who is building a replica of Roman Jerusalem on the prairie’s Big Rock. He claims the replica is for his passion play, but he and his cronies are also part of an interstate fraud ring.
A criminal enterprise that the boy now threatens.
As Maytubby and Bond try to protect the boy and his mother, they take shots and face deadly obstacles. Can they outmaneuver the criminals determined to silence a child forever?
Ten-Acre Rock
Under the massive boulders on Oklahoma’s Big Rock Prairie, a burned skeleton is stuffed inside a homemade charcoal kiln. Chickasaw Lighthorse Sergeant Bill Maytubby and Deputy County Hannah Bond are immediately called to the scene.
The victim was a young Chickasaw man that lived nearby. But this isn’t an ordinary murder.
Soon, Maytubby and Bond find themselves entrenched in a conspiracy that put the victim’s family in danger. And Maytubby and Bond aren’t any safer.
As their investigation takes them through backroads and thickets, they frantically try to stay one step ahead of a murderer hellbent on keeping his secrets.
