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Library | Call Number | Status |
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Searching... McMinnville Public Library | Gear, K. | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Sheridan Public Library | Gear Anasazi Mystery v.1 | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
"Dr. Maureen Cole, one of the world's foremost physical anthropologists, has been called in to examine and evaluate a mass grave discovered in New Mexico. The burial site contains only the shattered skulls of women and children."--BOOK JACKET. "Dr. Cole is appalled at the find and begins working immediately to unravel the mystery of these deaths. But as she works, strange things begin to happen around her. Little incidents at first, then her generator quits, and she begins to hear whispering voices emanating from the plastic bags of bones."--BOOK JACKET.
Author Notes
Kathleen O'Neal Gear was born on October 29, 1954 in Tulare, California. She received a B.A. from California State University in Bakersfield and a M.A. from California State University in Chico. She conducted Ph.D. studies at the University of California in Los Angeles and did post-graduate studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel. In the 1980's, she worked as the Wyoming state historian, and later as the archaeologist for Wyoming, Kansas and Nebraska. She received the federal government's Special Achievement Award twice for outstanding management of our nation's cultural heritage.
She married W. Michael Gear in 1982, and they have collaborated on a series of books for young adults. The theme of these books is ancient civilizations, and the titles include People of the Wolf, People of the Fire, People of the Sea, and People of the Lakes. They own Wind River Archaeologist Consultants, which is a private research firm. She has also written several books by herself including the Women of the West series.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In the upper Sonoran desert of present-day New Mexico, a charismatic yet troubled archeologist named Dusty Stewart is unearthing a mystery that began about A.D. 1200. While excavating a site of the Chaco Anasazi Indians, Stewart and his team discover mass graves containing the bodies of young women, all with their skulls smashed. Using flashbacks to merge past and present into a relatively seamless tapestry, the Gears depict an ancient, waning Anasazi people plagued with drought, declining resources and rampant tuberculosis. Ash Girl, the wife of the tribal war chief, Browser, has been found deadÄher head crushed and a wolf mask at her side. Young girls continue to disappear from surrounding villages, and Browser, with the aid of his shrewdly eccentric uncle, searches for a serial killer. Meanwhile, in the present, a team of archeologists and anthropologists, most notably Dr. Maureen Cole, who's the heroine of this series launch, are also trying to solve the puzzle of the graves, using not only 20th-century technology, but, in addition, extrasensory perception that links them to the spirits of the past. Breathtaking descriptions evoke the harsh beauty of the desert in both winter and summer, while the lucid, erudite historical perspectives are informed by the authors' own extensive archeological experience. Yet the mystery is needlessly complex, and the enormous cast is unwieldy. For all its considerable strengths, this first book in the Anasazi mystery series falls a notch below the level attained by the Gears in their First North American historicals. $125,000 ad/promo; author tour. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Archaeologists as well as novelists, the Gears have committed at least nine voluminous fictions about the First North Americans (People of the Mist, 1998, etc.), moving from pre-Columbian cultures up to the a.d. 14th-century. Their latest begins a fresh series and shifts focus to the North American Southwest and the mysterious Anasazi tribe of New Mexico. When a group led by Dr. Maureen Cole, a renowned physical anthropologist (she digs for people, not theories), begins uncovering a new dig, they find the graves of women and children whose skulls were bashed in with rocks. How do these dead connect with the Age of Emergence'a time when the First People, possessing secret knowledge, came up through the underworld and were given the Made People by their Creator, who breathed upon certain animals and created human tribes from buffalo, bear, ants, and coyotes? Chapters alternate between the present and a.d. 1256, when the graves were first made. Does the Shadow, who has no eyes and wears wolf fur and kills women, live in the giant cave first discovered by Ash Girl? Is the Shadow from the Land of the Dead? Is it responsible for all the murdered women and children? Or are the answers less supernatural? At heart a murder mystery. All questions are answered, but the evil remains. After 26 novels, the Gears know how to leave themselves enough rope for another volume. ($125,000 ad/promo)
Booklist Review
In the first of a new series, the Anasazi Mysteries, the Gears present a murder mystery which is set in northern New Mexico, involves a serial killer, and is being investigated both now and when it occurred back in the thirteenth century. In the present, the members of an archaeological dig unearth human bones, necessitating the summoning of a NAGPRA (Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act) monitor, who arrives in the person of Hail, a frail, elderly woman of strong spirit. Dr. Maureen Cole (briefly met in People of the Masks [1998]), a Canadian Indian forensic anthropologist who has a major personality conflict with lead archaeologist Dusty Stewart, is also on the case. In the past, a band called the Katsinasi People are rebuilding kivas in abandoned cliff dwellings to try to return harmony to the earth. Browser, the war chief, is preparing to bury his young son when a body, identified as his wife, is found in the readied grave with its head shattered under a rock. Then a woman who was watching over the nearby ceremonial fire is found to have been attacked with the same brutality. After yet another murder, Browser sends for his great uncle, an elderly eccentric called Stone Ghost, who has been solving mysteries for more than 50 years. The fascinating details of both Anasazi life and contemporary archaeology enrich an otherwise ordinary crime story in which the perpetrator and motive don't quite ring true. But the vividly depicted characters and settings are satisfying and leave the reader hoping for more titles in this promising series. --Diana Tixier Herald
Library Journal Review
Things begin to get eerie as an archaeological team starts excavating an ancient civilization in the sweltering New Mexico heat of 1999. First, the team begins to uncover an alarming array of shattered Anasazi skulls alongside the usual shards of old pottery; soon mysterious, impossible things start happening around the dig. In this, the latest installment in the popular "First North American" series, the authors weave together two suspenseful, haunting stories. Along the way, they ask meaningful questions about the relationship between science and religion, history and time, as the anthropologists grapple with their own beliefs and emotions. Readers will enjoy the wide range of characters and thick suspense. Highly recommended for all public libraries.ÄSusan A. Zappia, Maricopa Cty. Lib. Dist., Phoenix (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.