While there is no denying the obvious parallels between RPM and Lucy Kettle and AIM and Anna Mae Aquash, they are for the purpose of soul searching not accusations of guilt. Thumps solves the mystery in both his present and past but is no closer to solving his dilemma of what to do about Noah Ridge. It would be nice to think of Noah as the self-serving pig who got what he came for with his trip to Chinook: five minutes on Jay Leno and a second printing of his book.
But he was also right when he said if it wasn't for him keeping Native issues in the public eye, who would? He's only playing the game the way the American government has been playing it for hundreds of years, manipulating facts and events to get whatever advantage possible from them. Besides, as Dakota Miles tells him, Noah is the RPM and without him it would have ceased to exist in the eyes of the public years ago.
Some mysteries don't have the luxury of the easy answer of simply finding the guilty party, and Thomas King in The Red Power Murders has created that creature. While there are black and white answers to the who done it aspects of this book, the others are left hanging in the air like so much smoke after a three alarm blaze. While this is a good mystery story, it is the places where it slips the boundaries of its genre that make it a great work of fiction.
Article comments
1 - India Rolling Water
Either the author or the reviewer needs to get his facts straight. Arlo Looking Cloud was convicted for Annie Mae's murder, and John Boy Patton is fighting extradtion from Canada to stand trial for her murder. All rezes are not under federal jurisdiction, although Pine Ridge is. Annie Mae's murder did not besmirch AIM in the '70s and '80s because no one in AIM was accused until after 2000. Although the feds now point the finger at former so-called AIM "leaders" for her murder, most people still believe the FBI was actually behind it.
2 - Ufly4flee
India Rolling Water is correct about everything except that last comment - the AIM leadership has always falsely accused the FBI of involvement in Anna Mae's murder, not the other way around. As was revealed in the Looking Cloud trial, Dennis Banks called his wife on the day Anna Mae's body was discovered (10 weeks, not 10 days after her death) and said, "They found Anna Mae." Trouble was, the body was not identified by the FBI until a full week later. How did Banks know? And for that matter, how did John Trudell, Bruce Ellison, Vernon Bellecourt and a host of Anna Mae's AIM friends know about the body, (according to Bob Robideau)? Most people who followed the Looking Cloud trial now know that the AIM leadership was definitely behind the murder. When John Boy is put on trial, all will be revealed...
BTW, don't believe the stories about FBI informant Durham fingering Anna Mae. That's another canard designed to deflect attention away from the guilty. What the propagandists never say is that Durham's cover was blown nine months before they killed Anna Mae. It was the AIM leadership and their friends at WKLDOC who fed their own narcisstic, self-righteous, paranoid BS. Anna Mae did not betray them - they betrayed her!
Following the trial, Anna Mae's family, realizing the truth, brought her home to Canada because they were incensed over AIM "heroes" holding perfunctory ceremonies over her Oglala grave site. On the day Anna Mae was buried (the second time) in 1975, not one of these characters showed up at her funeral because at the time, she was still considered deserving of her sentence. What utter comtempt these people have. I hope every one of these SOB's ends up in jail!