“Osiyo, tohitsu?” That’s Cherokee for “hello, how are you?” My name is Sadie Walela and I am Cherokee. Walela means hummingbird which is quite appropriate since I seem to always be buzzing around, forward and backward, and even hovering in place – whatever it takes to solve a crime in Cherokee Country. It’s not that I go around looking for crimes to solve, they just seem to drop in my lap when I least expect it.

I live near Eucha, (pronounced Oo-chee) Oklahoma, in a farmhouse on land that belonged to my Cherokee ancestors. I share my place with my best friends: a paint horse named Joe, a wolfdog named Sonny, and the most recent addition, Sir William the billy goat. Together, we make a great team.

I started out in the banking business in Deception on All Accounts, where it was up to me to track down the bank robber who killed my co-worker. That was quite an eye-opening experience, one that almost cost me my life.

Next, in The American Café, I left the banking business, and with the help of a windfall, I decided to try my hand in the restaurant business. The first day I showed up to start my new adventure, the former owner was killed on her front porch, blown away by a shotgun blast. Before I knew it, I was caught up in trying to find her killer, all while trying to get my new restaurant up and running. I never knew things could get so complicated.

In Sinking Suspicions, I turned the American Café over to its rightful owner and offered to help out a friend by running her travel agency. In order to learn the business, I had to travel to Maui to meet the owners of the company. What a trip that turned out to be. There I was, trapped on Maui after an earthquake shut down the airport, when I found out my elderly neighbor back in Oklahoma had disappeared in triple-digit heat. It was a race to make it back in time to save his life – twice!

Then came Betrayal at the Buffalo Ranch where a man was killed right on the edge of my property, with an arrow, no less. A pushy Texan had just moved in down the road and opened up a trophy hunting ranch where rich people could go and shoot animals just for the fun of it. I drove by the ranch one morning and saw a white buffalo calf being born. It was absolutely amazing, and then when it disappeared the next day, I knew something was wrong. I felt in my heart the ranch and the murder had to be connected in some way. Then, when the owner of the ranch was murdered, I got in trouble sticking my nose in a dangerous place and it almost cost Sonny and me our lives. Thankfully, Uncle Eli was there to save the day. I don’t know what I’d done if Sonny had died. But that’s when things began to unravel. They say confession is good for the soul, and that’s exactly what happened. Balance was restored.

I don’t know where I’ll end up next, but I hope you’ll read about my adventures in the Sadie Walela Mystery Series, published by the University of Arizona Press. In the meantime, wado (that means “thank you”) for your time.

You can read more about Sadie in Betrayal at the Buffalo Ranch, the fourth book in the “Sadie Walela” mystery series.

When Sadie Walela learns that her new neighbor in Cherokee Country, Angus Clyborn’s Buffalo Ranch, offers rich customers a chance to kill buffalo for fun, she is horrified. No good can surely come from this. It doesn’t, and murder soon follows.

Even though Deputy Sheriff Lance Smith, Sadie’s love interest, suspects a link to the Buffalo Ranch, he can find little evidence to make an arrest. And when a rare white buffalo calf is born on the ranch and immediately disappears, Sadie’s instincts tell her something is wrong—and she sets out to prove it. Her suspicions—and fears of more violence—escalate when a former schoolmate returns to Oklahoma to visit her ailing father and finds employment at the ranch. Will she be the next victim?

Drawn deeper and deeper into danger, Sadie uncovers an unparalleled web of greed and corruption. It will take all of her investigative skill to set things straight—assuming she and her wolfdog can stay alive long enough to succeed.

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Meet the author
Sara Sue Hoklotubbe is the winner of a WILLA Literary Award, a New Mexico-Arizona Book Award, and a Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers Award. She has been a finalist for the Foreward Book of the Year and a two-time finalist for the Oklahoma Book Award. She is a member of Mystery Writers of America and Sisters-in-Crime. She and her husband currently live in Colorado.

All comments are welcomed.